Poem lifted from my weekend reading

Is it so small a thing, To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the Spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes-
That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date
And while we dream of this, Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds...yet distant our repose?

Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna (1853)