Wen Gott betrügt, ist wohl betrogen.

Is it true, ye gods, who treat us
As the gambling fool is treated;
O ye, who ever cheat us,
And let us feel were cheated!
Is it true that poetical power,
The gift of heaven, the dower
Of Apollo and the Nine,
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 poets fame is built on,
The fame of Shakespeare, Milton,
Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,
Is in reasons 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?
And that s the way ye treat us?

Oh say it, all who think it,
Look straight, and never blink it!
If it is so, let it be so,
And we will all agree so;
But the plot has counterplot,
It may be, and yet be not.

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

The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich - VI

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Come home, come home! and where is home for me

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Solvitur acris Hiems

Arthur Hugh Clough, Simple Poetry

Sehnsucht

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.

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,
B...

Arthur Hugh Clough

The Dream Land

I

To think that men of former days
In naked truth deserved the praise
Which, fain to have in flesh and blood
An image of imagined good,
Poets have sung and men received,
And all too glad to be deceived,
Most plastic and most inexact,
Posterity has told for fact;
To say what was, was not as we,
This also is a vanity.

II

Ere Agamemnon, warriors were,
Ere Helen, beauties equalling her,
Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows,
And brave or fair as these or those.
The commonplace whom daily we
In our dull streets and houses see,
To think of other mould than these
Were Cato, Solon, Socrates,
Or Mahomet or Confutze,
This also is a vanity.

III

Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain,
And he before, who back on S...

Arthur Hugh Clough

There is No God, the Wicked Sayeth

There is no God, the wicked saith,
And truly its a blessing,
For what He might have done with us
Its better only guessing.

There is no God, a youngster thinks,
or really, if there may be,
He surely did not mean a man
Always to be a baby.

There is no God, or if there is,
The tradesman thinks, twere funny
If He should take it ill in me
To make a little money.

Whether there be, the rich man says,
It matters very little,
For I and mine, thank somebody,
Are not in want of victual.

Some others, also, to themselves,
Who scarce so much as doubt it,
Think there is none, when they are well,
And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath
The shadow of the steeple;
The parson and...

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

The New Sinai

Lo, here is God, and there is God!
Believe it not, O Man;
In such vain sort to this and that
The ancient heathen ran:
Though old Religion shake her head,
And say in bitter grief,
The day behold, at first foretold,
Of atheist unbelief:
Take better part, with manly heart,
Thine adult spirit can;
Receive it not, believe it not,
Believe it not, O Man!

As men at dead of night awaked
With cries, The king is here,
Rush forth and greet whomeer they meet,
Whoeer shall first appear;
And still repeat, to all the street,
Tis he, the king is here;
The long procession moveth on,
Each nobler form they see,
With changeful suit they still salute,
And cry, Tis he, tis he!

So, even so, when men were young,
And earth and he...

Arthur Hugh Clough

?????? ???? ??? ?????? (Greek Poems)

If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold,
A sense of human kindliness hath found us,
We seem to have around us
An atmosphere all gold,
Midst darkest shades a halo rich of shine,
An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth,
On the rich heart bestoweth
Imbreathed draughts of wine;
Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be,
To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted!
No, nor on thee be wasted,
Thou trifler, Poesy!
Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere
Youth fly, with lifes real tempest would be coping:
The fruit of dreamy hoping
Is, waking, blank despair.

Arthur Hugh Clough