The Hidden Love

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
No witness to my vision call,
Beholding, unbeheld of all;
And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart,
Whoeer, Whateer Thou art,
Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.

What is it then to me
If others are inquisitive to see?
Why should I quit my place to go and ask
If other men are working at their task?
Leave my own buried roots to go
And see that brother plants shall grow;
And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light,
To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright,
Around their proper sun,
Deserting Thee, and being undone.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought,
As but man can or ought,
Within the abstractedst shrine of my least breathed-on thought.

Better it were, thou sayest, to consent;
Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;
Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,
The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;
In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,
And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.

Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,
And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there;
Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,
And say, what is not, will be by-and-bye.

Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough was born on January 1, 1819, in Liverpool, England. He was a prominent Victorian poet known for his thoughtful and somewhat unconventional works. Clough was educated at Rugby School and later at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became closely associated with the intellectual reformist circles of the time. His poetry often explored themes of doubt, faith, and societal conventions. Despite his relatively short life, Clough made a significant impact on English literature and remains a respected figure of the Victorian literary scene. He passed away on November 13, 1861.

Arthur Hugh Clough

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Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

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Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Hope evermore and believe!

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich - VIII

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

English

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Qui Laborat, Orat

O only Source of all our light and life,
Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,
But whom the hours of mortal moral strife
Alone aright reveal!

Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought,
Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;
Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought,
My will adoreth Thine.

With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind
Speechless remain, or speechless een depart;
Nor seek to see, for what of earthly kind
Can see Thee as Thou art?

If well-assured tis but profanely bold
In thoughts abstractest forms to seem to see,
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 se...

Arthur Hugh Clough

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O thou whose image in the shrine
Of human spirits dwells divine;
Which from that precinct once conveyed,
To be to outer day displayed,
Doth vanish, part, and leave behind
Mere blank and void of empty mind,
Which wilful fancy seeks in vain
With casual shapes to fill again!

O Thou that in our bosoms shrine
Dost dwell, unknown because divine!
I thought to speak, I thought to say,
The light is here, behold the way,
The voice was thus, and thus the word,
And thus I saw, and that I heard,
But from the lips that half essayed
The imperfect utterance fell unmade.

O Thou, in that mysterious shrine
Enthroned, as I must say, divine!
I will not frame one thought of what
Thou mayest either be or not.
I will not prate of thus an...

Arthur Hugh Clough

??? ????? (Greek - Poems and Prose Remains, Vol II)

On the mountain, in the woodland,
In the shaded secret dell,
I have seen thee, I have met thee!
In the soft ambrosial hours of night,
In darkness silent sweet
I beheld thee, I was with thee,
I was thine, and thou wert mine!

When I gazed in palace-chambers,
When I trod the rustic dance,
Earthly maids were fair to look on,
Earthly maidens hearts were kind:
Fair to look on, fair to love:
But the life, the life to me,
Twas the death, the death to them,
In the spying, prying, prating
Of a curious cruel world.
At a touch, a breath they fade,
They languish, droop, and die;
Yea, the juices change to sourness,
And the tints to clammy brown;
And the softness unto foulness,
And the odour unto stench.
Let alone and leave to bloom;

Arthur Hugh Clough

Blank Misgivings Of A Creature Moving About In Worlds Not Realised.

I

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,
One-third departed of the mortal span,
Carrying on the child into the man,
Nothing into reality. Sails rent,
And rudder broken, reason impotent
Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare
On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare
To do and to be done by, well content.
So was it from the first, so is it yet;
Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set
On any human lips, methinks was sin
Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will
Into a deed een then advanced, wherein
God, unidentified, was thought-of still.

II

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon
For poor Ease sake I give away my heart,
And for the moments sympathy let part
My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,
My ...

Arthur Hugh Clough

?ò ???ó? (Greek Poems - Poems and Prose Remains, Vol II)

I have seen higher holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet am I panting for a little ease;
Ill take, and so depart.

Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget,
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt?

How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then
Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet,
Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again,
Bethink thee of the debt!

Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these,
And therefore must to these thy heart refuse?
With the true best, alack, how ill agrees
That best that thou wouldst choose!

The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;
Do thou, as best thou mayst, thy duty do
Amid the things...

Arthur Hugh Clough

Love and Reason

When panting sighs the bosom fill,
And hands by chance united thrill
At once with one delicious pain
The pulses and the nerves of twain;
When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
Extatic conscious unison,
The sure beginnings, say, be these
Prelusive to the strain of love
Which angels sing in heaven above?

Or is it but the vulgar tune,
Which all that breathe beneath the moon
So accurately learn so soon?
With variations duly blent;
Yet that same song to all intent,
Set for the finer instrument;
It is; and it would sound the same
In beasts, were not the bestial frame,
Less subtly organised, to blame;
And but that soul and spirit add
To pleasures, even base and bad,
A zest the soulless never had.

Arthur Hugh Clough