Thesis and Antithesis

If that we thus are guilty doth appear,
Ah, guilty tho we are, grave judges, hear!
Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth
Midst pleasures borders missed the track of truth,
Made love on benches underneath green trees,
Stuffed tender rhymes with old new similes,
Whispered soft anythings, and in the blood
Felt all you said not most was understood
Ah, if you have, as which of you has not?
Nor what you were have utterly forgot,
Then be not stern to faults yourselves have known,
To others harsh, kind to yourselves alone.

That we, young sir, beneath our youths green trees
Once did, not what should profit, but should please,
In foolish longing and in love-sick play
Forgot the truth and lost the flying day,
That we went wrong we say not is not true,
But, if we erred, were we not punished too?
If not, if no one checked our wandering feet,
Shall we our parents negligence repeat?
In future times that ancient loss renew,
If none saved us, forbear from saving you?
Nor let that justice in your faults be seen
Which in our own or was or should have been!

Yet, yet, recal the mind that you had then,
And, so recalling, listen yet again;
If you escaped, tis plainly understood
Impunity may leave a culprit good;
If you were punished, did you then, as now,
The justice of that punishment allow?
Did what your age consents to now, appear
Expedient then and needfully severe?
In youths indulgence think there yet might be
A truth forgot by grey severity.
That strictness and that laxity between,
Be yours the wisdom to detect the mean.

Tis possible, young sir, that some excess
Mars youthful judgment and old mens no less;
Yet we must take our counsel as we may
For (flying years this lesson still convey),
Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise,
And not to use, but still correct ones eyes.

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

Come back, come back, behold with straining mast

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

The Shadow 1

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich - IX

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Last Words. Napoleon and Wellington

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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 ...

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Seven Sonnets on the Thought of Death 1

I

That children in their loveliness should die
Before the dawning beauty, which we know
Cannot remain, has yet begun to go;
That when a certain period has passed by,
People of genius and of faculty,
Leaving behind them some result to show,
Having performed some function, should forego
The task which younger hands can better ply,
Appears entirely natural. But that one
Whose perfectness did not at all consist
In things towards forming which time can have done
Anything, whose sole office was to exist,
Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be
Is the extreme of all perplexity.

II

That there are better things within the womb
Of Nature than to our unworthy view
She grants for a possession, may be true:
The cycle of the birthplace and ...

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Rabbi Ben Ezra

I.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!

II.
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!

III.
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youths brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark

IV.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On j...

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The Worst Of It

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first flecks fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in lifes struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

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Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous.

    "My son, these maxims make a rule,
        And lump them ay thegither;
    The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
        The Rigid Wise anither:
    The cleanest corn that e'er was dight
        May hae some pyles o' caff in;
    So ne'er a fellow-creature slight
        For random fits o' daffin."

Solomon. - Eccles. ch. vii. ver. 16.


I.

    O ye wha are sae guid yoursel',
        Sae pious and sae holy,
    Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
        Your neibor's fauts and folly!
    Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
        Supply'd wi' store o' water,
    The heaped happer's ebbing still,
        And still the clap plays clatter.

II.

    Hear me, ye venerable core,
        As counsel for poor mortals...

Robert Burns

Morituri Salutamus - Poem For The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Class Of 1825 In Bowdoin College

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.--OVID, Fastorum, Lib. vi.


"O Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!
We are forgotten; an...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow