Arthur Hugh Clough

“ Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age
Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical;
Some in whom vapours of their own conceit,
As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars,
Still blotted out their good, the best at best
By frivolous laugh and prate conventional
All too untuned for all she thought to say—
With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek
Flushed-up, and o'er-flushed itself, blank night her soul
Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned. ”

“ As Isaac's days or Abraham's, have been mine;
Not as the days of those that in the field
Walked at the eventide to meditate,
And haply, to the tent returning, found
Angels at nightfall waiting at their door.
They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord.
No, not as Abraham's or as Isaac's days,
My sons, have been Jacob your father's days,
Evil and few, attaining not to theirs
In number, and in worth inferior much.
As a man with his friend, walked they with God,
In His abiding presence they abode,
And all their acts were open to His face. ”

“ But home is not in land or sky, but in those whom each holds dear.
The evening’s cooling breeze is fanning my temples now,
But then my frame was languid, and heated was my brow,
And I longed for England’s cool, and for England’s breezes then,
But now I would give full many a breeze to be back in the heat again.
But when cold strange looks without, and proud high thoughts within,
Are weaving round my heart the woof of selfishness and sin ”

“ Besides Walrond and Clough, there were T. Arnold, E. Arnold, and myself. It was one of the loveliest September mornings that ever shone, and the drive lay through one of the most lovely regions in south Scotland, known as "the Trough of Clyde." The sky was bright blue, fleeced with whitest clouds. From Hamilton to Milton Lockhart, about ten miles, the road keeps down in the hollow of the trough, near the water, the banks covered with orchards, full of heavy-laden apple and other fruit trees bending down till they touched the yellow corn that grew among them. ”

“ What, however, must always be remembered is, that Clough was happy in his work, and happy in his home life. It would be easy, were it necessary, to show from his poems how strong in him was the sense of family feeling, how tenderly and delicately he appreciated the family relations, how fond he was of children and young people, how naturally he enjoyed domestic life. Nor can anyone doubt that in work itself he found full satisfaction, especially in such work as made him helpful to others, and brought him into vivid human contact with his fellow-workers. ”

“ 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? ”

“ There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not.
Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said.
Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said.
Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string) ,—
Moreover, in the darkness of my mind,
When the night's night of misery was most black,
A little star came twinkling up within,
And in myself I had a guide that led,
And in myself had knowledge of a soul
Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go. ”

“ And in a London drawing-room some day—
Rings on her fingers, brilliants in her hair,
The lady of the latest millionaire—
She'll come, and with a gathering slow surprise
On Lady Mary's husband turn her eyes:
The soft brown eyes that in a former day
From his discretion lured him all astray.
At home, six bouncing girls, who more or less
Are learning English of a governess,
Six boisterous boys, as like as pear to pear ”

“ In this way, though he did not cease to think about the problems which hitherto had occupied his leisure, he thought about them in a different way, and was able, so to speak, to test them by the facts of actual life, and by the intuitions and experience of those whose character he valued, instead of submitting them only to the crucible of his own reflection. The close and constant contact with another mind gave him a fresh insight into his own, and developed a new understanding of the wants of other people, so that the results of many years of meditation grew distinct and solid. ”

“ So spake the voice: and as with a single life
Instinct, the whole mass, fierce, irretainable,
Down on that unsuspecting host swept;
Down, with the fury of winds, that all night
Upbrimming, sapping slowly the dyke, at dawn
Fall through the breach o'er holmstead and harvest ”

“ What is the true purpose of education? Simply to make plain to the young understanding the laws of the life they will have to enter. For example—that lying won't do, thieving still less; that idleness will get punished; that if they are cowards, the whole world will be against them; that if they will have their own way, they must fight for it. As for the conscience, mamma, I take it—such as mammas are now-a-days, at any rate—has probably set that agoing fast enough already. What a blessing to see her good little child come back a brave young devil-may-care!'
'Exactly, my dear sir. ”

“ The memory of Arthur Clough will be safe in the hearts of his friends. Few beyond his friends have known him at all; his writings may not reach beyond a small circle; but those who have received his image into their hearts, know that something has been given them which no time can take away, and to them we think no words will seem fitter than those of the poet, happily also his friend, which have cherished the memory of another beautiful soul ”

“ Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset,
To win with art safe wisdom's peaceful way.
Alas! I know, and from the onset knew,
The first-born faith, the singleness of soul,
The antique pure simplicity with which
God and good angels communed undispleased,
Is not; it shall not any more be said,
That of a blameless and a holy kind,
The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes. ”

“ His new circumstances were, of course, very different from those of his Oxford life, and the change was in many respects painful to him. The step he had taken in resigning his fellowship, isolated him greatly; many of his old friends looked coldly on him, and the new acquaintances among whom he was thrown were often uncongenial to him. The transition from the intimate and highly refined society of Oxford to the bustling miscellaneous external life of London, to one not well furnished with friends, and without a home of his own, could hardly fail to be depressing. ”

“ Places the seat of friendship over love;
’Tis not in love that we should think to find
The lofty fellowship of mind with mind;
Love ’s not a joy where soul and soul unite,
Rather a wondrous animal delight ”

“ 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 ”

“ Said Jane the following day, ‘Edward, you know,
Over and over I have told you so,
As in a better world I seek to live,
As I desire forgiveness, I forgive.
Forgiveness does not feel the word to say,—
As I believe in One who takes away
Our sin and gives us righteousness instead,—
You to this sin, I do believe, are dead. ”

“ Of my mother's gentle voice, and my mother's beckoning hand,
And all the tales she used to tell of the far, far English land;
And the happy, happy evening hours, when I sat on my father's knee,—
Oh! many a wave is rolling now betwixt that seat and me! ”

“ Such scepticism—scepticism which consists in reverent waiting for light not yet given, in respect for the truth so absolute, that nothing doubtful can be accepted as truth because it is pleasant to the soul—was his from this time forth to the end of his life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My heart was hot within me, and, me seemed,
I too had in my body breath to wind
The magic horn of song; I too possessed
Up-welling in my being's depths a fount
Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill
The golden urns of verse. ”

“ Himself he had a hundred pounds a year.
To this plain business he would bend his life,
And find his joy in children and in wife,
A wife so good, so tender, and so true,
Mother to be of glorious children too. ”

“ Hearts, ’tis quite another thing!
To bestow the soul away
Is 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 ”

“ When the mind is not sound and well,
⁠Nor the soul free from taint of sin.
For as God’s Spirit from above,
⁠So Beauty is to them below,
And when they slight that holy love,
⁠Their hearts that presence may not know. ”

“ You see, dear sir, the thing which it is attempted to represent is the conflict between the tender conscience and the world. Now, the over-tender conscience will, of course, exaggerate the wickedness of the world; and the Spirit in my poem may be merely the hypothesis or subjective imagination formed—'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, my dear boy,' interrupted my uncle, 'don't go into the theory of it. If you're wrong in it, it makes bad worse; if you're right, you may be a critic, but you can't be a poet. ”

“ A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade,
As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old
Came, the Greek poet told,
To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made—
As pale, as thin, and said:
'I am the Resurrection of the Dead. ”

“ The nought-else-seeking, nought-essaying soul.
Therefore it is my mind with doubts I urge;
Hence are these fears and shiverings on the verge;
By books, not nature, thus have we been schooled,
By poetry and novels been befooled ”

“ To his younger friends and pupils he especially endeared himself. One of them says: 'My Oxford days seem all coloured with the recollection of happy and most instructive walks and talks with him. We used to meet every day almost, though at different colleges; and it was my regular Sunday holiday to breakfast with him, and then take a long ramble over Cumnor Hurst or Bagley Wood. When I recall those days, the one thing that comes back upon me most, even more than the wisdom and loftiness and suggestiveness of his conversation, is his unselfishness and tender kindness. ”

“ As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone,
Consumed in bitter anger all night long,
I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet,
One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel's was
Upon the breast of him that knew her not? ”

“ With so much of inward peace, absolutely free from envy or jealousy, not depressed by the want of outward success, given in so much larger measure to many of his contemporaries, capable of looking at outward things from a truly philosophic height, gifted with genuine humour, and open in his soul to all kindly natural feelings, endowed with a rare power of inspiring unclouded affection, he could not but enjoy a high degree of happiness. ”

“ By luck and effort win our way,
And both have need of every day.
Each day has got its sight to see,
Each day must put to profit be;
Pleasant, when seen are all the sights,
To let them think themselves to rights. ”

“ I talked of much I thought I knew,
Used all my college wit anew,
A little on my fancy drew;
Religion, politics, O me!
No subject great enough could be.
In vain, more weak in spirit grown,
At times he tried to put me down. ”

“ Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!
Alas! the great world goes its way,
And takes its truth from each new day;
They do not quit, nor can retain,
Far less consider it again. ”

“ O tell me, friends, while yet we part,
And heart can yet be heard of heart,
O tell me then, for what is it
Our early plan of life we quit;
From all our old intentions range,
And why does all so wholly change? ”

“ To awake to life the mind within the mind!’
‘O charms, seductions and divine delights!
All through the radiant yellow summer nights,
Dreams, hardly dreams, that yield or e’er they’re done,
To the bright fact, my day, my risen sun! ”

“ And at his age, more easy he can spare,
Perhaps, a mother's than a father's care.
Indeed I think him like his father, too;
He will be happier, probably, with you.
'Tis best, I know, nor will he quite forget,
Some day he'll come perhaps and see his mother yet. ”