Arthur Hugh Clough

I

Why should I say I see the things I see not?
Why be and be not?
Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not?
And dance about to music that I hear not?
Who standeth still i’ the street
Shall be hustled and justled about;
And he that stops i’ the dance shall be spurned by the dancers’ feet,
Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet,
And shall raise up an outcry and rout;
And the partner, too,
What ’s the partner to do?
While all the while ’tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear,
That yet anon shall hear,
And I anon, the music in my soul,
In a moment read the whole;
The music in my heart,
Joyously take my part,
And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance;
And borne on wings of wavy sound...

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 whome’er they meet,
Whoe’er 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...

The human spirits saw I on a day,
Sitting and looking each a different way;
And hardly tasking, subtly questioning,
Another spirit went around the ring
To each and each: and as he ceased his say,
Each after each, I heard them singly sing,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not, what avails to know?
We know not, wherefore need we know?
This answer gave they still unto his suing,
We know not, let us do as we are doing.
Dost thou not know that these things only seem?
I know not, let me dream my dream.
Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?
I know not, let me take my pleasure.
What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought?
I know not, let me think my thought.
What is the end of strife?
I know not, let me live my life.
How m...

I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied,
Upon a stone that was not rolled aside,
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 night is past, the morning is at hand,
And I must in my proper semblance stand,
Appear brief space and vanish, listen, this is true,
I am that Jesus whom they slew.’

And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came,
And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame,
Sorrow for their great loss, and shame
For what they did in that vain name.

And in long ranges far behind there seemed
Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept
Strange w...

Whence comest thou? shady lane, and why and how?
Thou, where with idle heart, ten years ago,
I wandered, and with childhood’s paces slow
So long unthought of, and remembered now!
Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side
I tread, and view thy orchard plots again
With yellow fruitage hung,—and glimmering grain
Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied.
This hot still noon of August brings the sight;
This quelling silence as of eve or night,
Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may
After her travail’s latest bitterest throes)
Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose,
One half in effort, straining, suffering still.

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 fancy’s dawning bright,
The golden bliss of, Woo’d, and won, and wed.

Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth,
The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes,
And silver o’er 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 bette...

Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent:
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:
Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats:
And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge;
Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou,
My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.
Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent,
Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own,
O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned,
And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay:
My first, my only, one, thou shalt not go;
And Adam answered also, Cain, my son,
He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive:
Rob not thy mother of two sons at once;
My child, abide with us and comfort us.

Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, hear;

O stream descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flow’rets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden plots the children play,
The fields the labourers till,
And houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death,
Our waking eyes behold,
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.

Strong purposes our mind possess,
Our hearts affections fill,
We toil and earn, we seek and learn,
And thou descendest still.

O end to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,
To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?

A roar we hear upon thy shore,
As we our course fulfil;
Scarce we divine a sun will shine
And be abov...

Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there
In small bright specks upon the visible side
Of our strange being’s party-coloured web.
How rich the converse! ’Tis a vein of ore
Emerging now and then on Earth’s rude breast,
But flowing full below. Like islands set
At distant intervals on Ocean’s face,
We see it on our course; but in the depths
The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps
Its faithful way, invisible but sure.
Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men
Pass by so many marks, so little heeding?

“There is no God,” the wicked saith,
“And truly it’s a blessing,
For what He might have done with us
It’s 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...

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 pleasure’s 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 youth’s 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...

I watched them from the window, thy children at their play,
And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away,
And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child’s own buoyant gladness
Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness;
And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago,
Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow.

I looked upon thy children, and I thought of all and each,
Of my brother and my sister, and our rambles on the beach,
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!

And many a day has p...

What we, when face to face we see
The Father of our souls, shall be,
John tells us, doth not yet appear;
Ah! did he tell what we are here!

A mind for thoughts to pass into,
A heart for loves to travel through,
Five senses to detect things near,
Is this the whole that we are here?

Rules baffle instincts–instincts rules,
Wise men are bad–and good are fools,
Facts evil–wishes vain appear,
We cannot go, why are we here?

O may we for assurance sake,
Some arbitrary judgment take,
And wilfully pronounce it clear,
For this or that ’tis we are here?

Or is it right, and will it do,
To pace the sad confusion through,
And say:–It doth not yet appear,
What we shall be, what we are here.

Ah yet, when all is thought and said,...

Lips, lips, open!
Up comes a little bird that lives inside
Up comes a little bird, and peeps, and out he flies.

All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings,
Up he comes, and out he goes at night to spread his wings.

Little bird, little bird, whither will you go?
Round about the world, while nobody can know.

Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee?
Far away around the world, while nobody can see.

Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam?
All round the world and around again home;

Round the round world, and back through the air,
When the morning comes, the little bird is there.

Back comes the little bird and looks and in he flies,
Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes.

Sleep, sleep, little boy,...

I

Over every hill
All is still;
In no leaf of any tree
Can you see
The motion of a breath.
Every bird has ceased its song,
Wait; and thou too, ere long,
Shall be quiet in death.

II

Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate,
Who never through the sad night hours
Weeping upon his bed hath sate,
He knows not you, you heavenly powers.

Forth into life you bid us go,
And into guilt you let us fall,
Then leave us to endure the woe
It brings unfailingly to all.

III

You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:
Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find?

IV

Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals,
By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort m...

(I. 1-32.)

Goddess, the anger sing of the Pelean Achilles,
Fatal beginning of griefs unnumbered to the Achæans;
Many valiant souls untimely it hurried to Hades,
And the heroes left themselves of dogs to be eaten
And of ravenous birds till Zeus’s plan was accomplished
From the day when first contention arose to dissever
Atrides the King and the godlike hero Achilles.
What divinity thus incited them to contention?
Zeus and Leto’s son; who, in anger with Agamemnon,
Sent a deadly disease on the host, destroying the people,
On account of the wrong the King to his worshipper offered,
Chryses, who had come to the hollow ships of Achaia,
To recover his daughter, with gifts of costly redemption,
Carrying in his hands the wreaths of the archer Apollo
Set on a go...

Ah, blame him not because he’s gay!
That he should smile, and jest, and play
But shows how lightly he can bear,
How well forget that load which, where
Thought is, is with it, and howe’er
Dissembled, or indeed forgot,
Still is a load, and ceases not.
This aged earth that each new spring
Comes forth so young, so ravishing
In summer robes for all to see,
Of flower, and leaf, and bloomy tree,
For all her scarlet, gold, and green,
Fails not to keep within unseen
That inner purpose and that force
Which on the untiring orbit’s course
Around the sun, amidst the spheres
Still bears her thro’ the eternal years.
Ah, blame the flowers and fruits of May,
And then blame him because he’s gay.

Ah, blame him not, for not being gay,
Because an hundred ...

When on the primal peaceful blank profound,
Which in its still unknowing silence holds
All knowledge, ever by withholding holds,
When on that void (like footfalls in far rooms),
In faint pulsations from the whitening East
Articulate voices first were felt to stir,
And the great child, in dreaming grown to man,
Losing his dream to piece it up began;
Then Plato in me said,
‘’Tis but the figured ceiling overhead,
With cunning diagrams bestarred, that shine
In all the three dimensions, are endowed
With motion too by skill mechanical,
That thou in height, and depth, and breadth, and power.
Schooled unto pure Mathesis, might proceed
To higher entities, whereof in us
Copies are seen, existent they themselves
In the sole kingdom of the Mind and God.
Mind not...