What is the course of life
of mortal men on the earth?
Most men eddy about
Here and there- eat and drink
Chatter and love and hate
Gather and squander are raised
Aloft, are hurled in the dust
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die-
Perish land no one asks
Who or what they have been..

Matthew Arnold, Oxford: The History of the Nation