Immortality

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn, 
We leave the brutal world to take its way, 
And, Patience! in another life, we say 
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne. 

And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn 
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they, 
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day, 
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn? 

No, no! the energy of life may be 
Kept on after the grave, but not begun; 
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, 

From strength to strength advancing only he, 
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, 
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

by Matthew Arnold