Arthur Hugh Clough

“ Catch at all hints, and where perchance one is,
People the forest with a hundred ills,
Each worse perhaps a hundred times than it.
No; you have got some fearful thoughts no, no;
Look not in that way on my baby, Adam
You do it hurt; you shall not!
Adam. Hear me, Eve.
If hear you will and speak I think I must
Hear me.
What is it I would say? I think
And yet I must so hear me, mother blest,
That sittest with thy nursling at thy heart,
Hope not too greatly, neither fear for him,
Feeling on thy breast his small compressing lips,
And glorying in the gift they draw from thee ”

“ SCENE III.
(Now the birth of Cain was in this wise.)
Adam and Eve.
Eve. Oh, Adam, I am comforted indeed;
Where is he? O my little one!
My heart is in the garden as of old,
And Paradise come back.
Adam. My love,
Blessed be this good day to thee indeed;
Blessed the balm of joy unto thy soul.
A sad unskilful nurse was I to thee;
But nature teaches mothers, I perceive. ”

“ Cain, you are proud and hard of heart e’en now.
Beware!
Prostrate your soul in penitential prayer,
Humble your heart beneath the mighty hand
Of God, whose gracious guidance oft shall lead
Through sin and crime the changed and melted heart
To sweet repentance and the sense of Him.
You ask not for atonement! O my son!
What, to be banished from the sight of God;
To dwell with wicked spirits, be a prey
To them and prey yourself on human souls;
What, to be lost in wickedness and wrath,
Deeper and deeper down;
What, Cain, do you choose this!
Cain. Alas! my mother,
I know not ”

“ Adam alone.
Adam. Abel is dead, and Cain ah, what is Cain?
Is he not even more than Abel dead?
Well, we must hope in Seth. This merest man,
This unambitious common-place of life,
Will after all perhaps mend all; and though
Record shall tell men to the after-time
No wondrous tales of him, in him at last,
And in his seed increased and multiplied,
Earth shall be blest and peopled and subdued,
And what was meant to be be brought to pass.
Oh but, my Abel and my Cain, e’en so
You shall not be forgotten nor unknown. ”

“ The Enjoyment, the aftervoid, the thinking of it
Specially the latter two, most specially the last.
There, in synopsis, see, you have it all:
Come, let us go and work!
Is it not enough?
What, is there three, four, five?
Eve. Oh, guilt, guilt, guilt!
Adam. Be comforted; muddle not your soul with doubt.
’Tis done, it was to be done; if, indeed,
Other way than this there was, I cannot say:
This was one way, and a way was needs to be found.
That which we were we could no more remain
Than in the moist provocative vernal mould
A seed its suckers close and rest a seed;
We were to grow. ”

“ So Cain, beware!
And Abel, too, see you provoke him not.
SCENE VI.
Abel alone.
Abel. At times I could believe
My father is no better than his son:
If not as overbearing, proud and hard,
Yet prayerless, worldly, almost more than Cain.
Enlighten and convert him ere the end,
My God! spurn not my mother’s prayers and mine.
Since I was born, was I not left to Thee,
In an unspiritual and godless house,
Unfathered and unbrothered Thine and hers?
They think not of the fall: e’en less they think
Of the redemption, which God said should be ”

“ I writhe in vain, with limbs convulsed, in the void.
Well, well I go idle words, babble your will;
I think the fit will leave me ere I die.
Fool, fool! where am I? O my God! Fool, fool!
Why did we do ’t? Eve, Eve! where are You? quick!
His tread is in the garden! hither it comes
Hide us, O bushes! and ye thick trees, hide!
He comes, on, on. Alack, and all these leaves,
These petty, quivering and illusive blinds,
Avail us nought: the light comes in and in;
Displays us to ourselves ”

“ That I am Thine, and Thou art mine, my God.
SCENE VII.
Cain alone.
Cain. Am I or am I not this which they think me?
My mother loves me not; my brother Abel,
Searing my heart, commends my soul to God ”

“ Is born of us, and therefore is not pure
Did I say that? I know not what I said;
It was a foolish humour; but, indeed,
Whatever you may think, I have not learnt
The trick of deep suppression, e’en the skill
To sort my thoughts and sift my words enough.
Not pure, indeed! And if it is not pure,
What is? Ah, well! but most I look to the days
When these small arms, with pliant thews filled out,
Shall at my side break up the fruitful glebe,
And aid the cheery labours of the year
Aid, or, in feebler wearier years, replace,
And leave me longer hours for home and love. ”

“ I answer, No! I will not curse myself,
Nor aught beside; I shall not die, but live.
Eve. Ah, me! alas! alas
More dismally in my face stares the doubt,
More heavily on my heart weighs the world.
Methinks
The questionings of ages yet to be,
The thinkings and cross-thinkings, self-contempts,
Self-horror ”

“ But confidence is the one and main thing now
Who loses confidence, he loses all.
A demi-grain of cowardice in me
Avowed, were poison to the whole mankind:
When men are plentier, ’twill be time to try ”