We, in some unknown Power's employ, Move on a rigorous line; Can neither, when we will, enjoy, Nor, when we will, resign. - Matthew Arnold

And you, ye stars,
Who slowly begin to marshal,
As of old, the fields of heaven,
Your distant, melancholy lines!
Have you, too, survived yourselves?
Are you, too, what I fear to become?
You, too, once lived;
You, too, moved joyfully
Among august companions,
In an older world, peopled by Gods,
In a mightier order,
The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.
But now, ye kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Unwilling lingerers
In the heavenly wilderness,
For a younger, ignoble world;
And renew, by necessity,
Night after night your courses,
In echoing, unneared silence,
Above a race you know not — Uncaring and undelighted,
Without friend and without home;
Weary like us, though not
Weary with our weariness.

Tis not the times, 'Tis not the Sophists vex him:
There is some root of suffering in himself,
Some secret and unfollow'd vein of woe,
Which makes the times look black and sad to him.

Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene I

Singing, "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she: And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea."