The Silver Wedding 1

The silver Wedding! on some pensive ear
From towers remote as sound the silvery bells,
To-day from one far unforgotten year
A silvery faint memorial music swells.

And silver-pale the dim memorial light
Of musing age on youthful joys is shed,
The golden joys of fancys dawning bright,
The golden bliss of, Wood, and won, and wed.

Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth,
The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes,
And silver oer the golden hairs of youth,
Less prized can make its only priceless prize.

Not so; the voice this silver name that gave
To this, the ripe and unenfeebled date,
For steps together tottering to the grave,
Hath bid the perfect golden title wait.

Rather, if silver this, if that be gold,
From good to better changed on ages track,
Must it as baser metal be enrolled,
That day of days, a quarter-century back.

Yet ah, its hopes, its joys were golden too,
But golden of the fairy gold of dreams
To feel is but to dream; until we do,
Theres nought that is, and all we see but seems;

What was or seemed it needed cares and tears,
And deeds together done, and trials past,
And all the subtlest alchemy of years,
To change to genuine substance here at last.

Your fairy gold is silver sure to-day;
Your ore by crosses many, many a loss,
As in refiners fires, hath purged away
What erst it had of earthy human dross.

Come years as many yet, and as they go,
In human lifes great crucible shall they
Transmute, so potent are the spells they know,.
Into pure gold the silver of to-day.

Strange metallurge is human life! Tis true;
And Use and Wont in many a gorgeous case
Full specious fair for casual outward view
Electrotype the sordid and the base.

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.

Come years again! as many yet! and purge
Less precious earthier elements away,
And gently changed at lifes extremest verge,
Bring bright in gold your perfect fiftieth day!

That sight may children see and parents show!
If notyet earthly chains of metal true,
By love and duty wrought and fixed below,
Elsewhere will shine, transformed, celestial-new;

Will shine of gold, whose essence, heavenly bright,
No doubt-damps tarnish, worldly passions fray;
Gold into gold there mirrored, light in light,
Shall gleam in glories of a deathless day.

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

Blessed are they that have not seen!

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

A Song of Autumn

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

O ship, ship, ship

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Seven Sonnets on the Thought of Death 1

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

English

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The Golden Year

Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:
It was last summer on a tour in Wales:
Old James was with me: we that day had been
Up Snowdon; and I wishd for Leonard there,
And found him in Llanberis: then we crost
Between the lakes, and clamberd half way up
The counter side; and that same song of his
He told me; for I banterd him, and swore
They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
That, setting the how much before the how,
Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, Give,
Cram us with all, but count not me the herd!


To which They call me what they will, he said:
But I was born too late: the fair new forms,
That float about the threshold of an age,
Like truths of Science waiting to be caught

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Gold And Silver Fishes In A Vase

The soaring lark is blest as proud
When at heaven's gate she sings;
The roving bee proclaims aloud
Her flight by vocal wings;
While Ye, in lasting durance pent,
Your silent lives employ
For something more than dull content,
Though haply less than joy.

Yet might your glassy prison seem
A place where joy is known,
Where golden flash and silver gleam
Have meanings of their own;
While, high and low, and all about,
Your motions, glittering Elves!
Ye weave, no danger from without,
And peace among yourselves.

Type of a sunny human breast
Is your transparent cell;
Where Fear is but a transient guest,
No sullen Humours dwell;
Where, sensitive of every ray
That smites this tiny sea,
Your scaly panoplies repay
The loan with ...

William Wordsworth

Gold Hair - A Story Of Pornic

I.
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,
Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,
Just where the sea and the Loire unite!
And a boasted name in Brittany
She bore, which I will not write.

II.
Too white, for the flower of life is red;
Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen
Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)
To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
And blossom in heaven instead.

III.
Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!
One grace that grew to its full on earth
Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,
And her waist want half a girdles girth,
But she had her great gold hair.

IV.
Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,
Freshness and fragrance, floods of it, too!
Gold, did I say? Nay, golds mere dross:
Here, Lif...

Robert Browning

In Memoriam 131: O Living Will That Shalt Endure

O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer'd years
To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.

O true and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day
Is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss
Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved
Since that dark day a day like this;

Tho' I since then have numb...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Hanging Of The Crane

I


The lights are out, and gone are all the guests
That thronging came with merriment and jests
    To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane
In the new house,--into the night are gone;
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,
    And I alone remain.

    O fortunate, O happy day,
    When a new household finds its place
    Among the myriad homes of earth,
    Like a new star just sprung to birth,
    And rolled on its harmonious way
    Into the boundless realms of space!

So said the guests in speech and song,
As in the chimney, burning bright,
We hung the iron crane to-night,
And merry was the feast and long.


II

And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision see, or seem to see,
    Throug...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow