Arthur Hugh Clough

“ Nor lack who praise, avowed, the spurious ware,
⁠Who bid young hearts the one true love forego,
Conceit to feed, or fancy light as air,
⁠Or greed of pelf and precedence and show.
True, false, as one to casual eyes appear,
⁠To read men truly men may hardly learn;
Yet doubt it not that wariest glance would here
⁠Faith, Hope and Love, the true Tower-stamp discern. ”

“ The inborn sense, "the vision and the faculty divine,"
All we glorify and bless
In our rapturous exaltation,
All invention, and creation,
Exuberance of fancy, and sublime imagination,
All a poet's fame is built on,
The fame of Shakespeare, Milton,
Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,
Is in reason's grave precision,
Nothing more, nothing less,
Than a peculiar conformation,
Constitution, and condition
Of the brain and of the belly?
Is it true, ye gods who cheat us? ”

“ I.
Ah, what is love, our love, she said,
⁠Ah, what is human love?
A fire, of earthly fuel fed,
⁠Full fain to soar above.
With lambent flame the void it lips,
⁠And of the impassive air
Would frame for its ambitious steps
⁠A heaven-attaining stair.
It wrestles and it climbs—Ah me,
⁠Go look in little space,
White ash on blackened earth will be
⁠Sole record of its place. ”

“ Hearts, 'tis quite another thing!
To bestow the soul away
In an idle duty-play!—
Why, to trust a life-long bliss
To caprices of a day,
Scarce were more depraved than this!
Men and maidens, see you mind it ”

“ It dare not dare the dread communion hold
⁠In ways unworthy Thee,
O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive,
⁠In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;
And if in work its life it seem to live,
⁠Shalt make that work be prayer. ”

“ Shall manliest homage pay
To that which yielding ever, still
Shall in its yielding sway:
Yea, happy he, whose willing soul
In perfect love combined
With thine shall form one perfect whole,
One happy heart and mind! ”

“ Why should I say I see the things I see not,
⁠Why be and be not?
Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not?
And dance about to music that I hear not?
⁠Who standeth still i' the street
⁠Shall be hustled and justled about ”

“ What things are good, and right, and just;
⁠And whether indeed they be or be not,
⁠Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
⁠'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
⁠By leading, opening ne'er your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave. ”

“ Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed
On food which does the present craving stay,
But may be clean-denied me e'en to-day,
And tho' 'twere certain, yet were ought but bread;
Letting—for so they say, it seems, I said,
And I am all too weak to disobey!
Therefore for me sweet Nature's scenes reveal not
Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not ”

“ Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong,
Though the rain, in summer's brightest, it were raining every day,
With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay!
I fall to sleep with dreams of life in some black bothie spent,
Coarse poortith's ware thou changing there to gold of pure content,
With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife,
In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life;
But I wake—to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow,
And the peaceful benediction of—ὁ θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ! ”

“ Of evil, still the sky above is blue,
The stars look down in beauty as before:
Is it enough to walk as best we may,
To walk, and sighing, dream of that blest day
When ill we cannot quell shall be no more? ”

“ And e'en in hearts depraved to sin
Some sudden, gracious influence,
May give the long-lost good again,
And wake within the dormant sense
And love of good;—for mortal men,
So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see
Defeat itself is victory. ”

“ As by a magic screen, the seër from the sight,
(Palsying the nerves that intervene
The eye and central sense between;)
⁠So may the ear,
⁠Hearing, not hear,
Though drums do roll, and pipes and cymbals ring;
So the bare conscience of the better thing
Unfelt, unseen, unimaged, all unknown,
May fix the entrancèd soul mid multitudes alone. ”

“ And e'en the dulling clouds combine
To bless with lights and hues divine
That region desolate and bare,
Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine!
Still doth the coward heart complain;
The hour may come, and come in vain;
The branch that withered lies and dead
No suns can force to lift its head. ”

“ No, nor on thee be wasted,
Thou trifler, Poesy!
Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere
Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping;
The fruit of dreamy hoping
Is, waking, blank despair. ”

“ Can never hope, nor e'en design
To give thee joy!
I give thee joy! O faithful word!
When heart with heart, and mind with mind
Shake-hands; and eyes in outward sign
Of inward vision, rest in thine ”

“ Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides—
To that, and your own selves, be true. ”

“ And thou wilt not:
At thy feet to kneel and reach and kiss thy finger-tips;
And thou wilt not:
And I feel thine arms that stay me,
And I feel ———
O mine own, mine own, mine own,
I am thine, and thou art mine! ”

“ There might, perchance, a courage be,
That fails in these the manlier years;
Courage to let the courage sink,
Itself a coward base to think,
Rather than not for heavenly light
Wait on to show the truly right. ”

“ Without thy will it came to me?
⁠Ah, with it let it stay;
Ah, with it, yes, abide in me,
⁠Nor only for to-day!
Thou claim 'st it? nay, the deed is done;
⁠Ah, leave it with thy leave;
And thou a thousand loves for one
⁠Shalt day on day receive! ”

“ And baby-thoughts again, again,
⁠Have dogged the growing man:
And as of old from Sinai's top
⁠God said that God is One,
By Science strict so speaks He now
⁠To tell us, There is None!
Earth goes by chemic forces ”

“ Of volant varlets scattering jest and jibe
Almost beside thee. Yet to thee, when rent
Was the Teutonic Cæsar's robe, there went
One portion: and with Julius, thou to-day
Canst boast, I came, I saw, I went away! ”

“ Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack
Knowledge they walk not back to back,
But with an unity of track,
Where common dangers each attend,
And common hopes their guidance lend
To light them to the self-same end. ”

“ There on thy pearly pavement pure
To lean, and feel myself secure,
Or through the dim-lit inter-space,
Afar at whiles upgazing trace
The dimpling bubbles dance around
Upon thy smooth exterior face ”

“ A wife may-be, a mother she
⁠In Hymen's shrine recals not now,
She first in hour, ah, not profane,
⁠With me to Hymen learnt to bow.
Ah no!—Yet owned we, fused in one,
⁠The Power which e'en in stones and earths
By blind elections felt, in forms
⁠Organic breeds to myriad births ”

“ Who, do whate'er they may, go where they will,
Must needs still carry about the looking-glass
Of vain philosophy. And if so be
That some small natural gesture shall escape them,
(Nature will out) straightway about they turn,
And con it duly there, and note it down,
With inward glee and much complacent chuckling,
Part in conceit of their superior science ”

“ When Israel came out of Egypt "The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear" "Why should I say I see the things I see not" "Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side" "Away, haunt not thou me" "My wind is turned to bitter north" "Look you, my simple friend, 'tis one of those" "Thought may well be ever ranging" "Duty—that 's to say complying" "Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised" Qua cursum ventus ALCAICS Natura naturans ὁ θεὸς μετὰ σοῦ ἐπὶ Λάτμῳ Χρυσέα κλῂς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ "Is it true, ye gods, who treat us" ”

“ The boats that should have passed there and did not;
Or at the ball, admiring crowds between,
To partner academical and slow
Teaching, upon the light Slavonic toe,
Polkas that were not, only should have been ”