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 e’en 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 moment’s sympathy let part
    My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,
    My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon,
    Almost, as gained: and though aside I start,
    Belie Thee daily, hourly, still Thou art,
    Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon;
    How much so e’er I sin, whate’er I do
    Of evil, still the sky above is blue,
    The stars look down in beauty as before
    It is enough to walk as best we may,
    To walk, and sighing, dream of that blest day
    When ill we cannot quell shall be no more.

III

    Well, well, Heaven bless you all from day to day!
    Forgiveness too, or e’er we part, from each,
    As I do give it. so must I beseech
    I owe all much, much more than I can pay;
    Therefore it is I go; how could I stay
    Where every look commits me to fresh debt,
    And to pay little I must borrow yet I
    Enough of this already, now away!
    With silent woods and hills untenanted
    Let me go commune; under thy sweet gloom,
    O kind maternal Darkness, hide my head
    The day may come I yet may re-assume
    My place, and, these tired limbs recruited, seek
    The task for which I now am all too weak.

IV

    Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way,
    Bearing the liar’s curse upon my head;
    Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed
    On food which does the present craving stay,
    But may be clean-denied me e’en to-day,
    And tho’ ’twere certain, yet were ought but bread;
    Letting for so they say, it seems, I said,
    And I am all too weak to disobey!
    Therefore for me sweet Nature’s scenes reveal not
    Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not;
    Sweet eyes pass off me uninspired; yea, more,
    The golden tide of opportunity
    Flows wafting-in friendships and better, I
    Unseeing, listless, pace along the shore.

V

    How often sit I, poring o’er
    My strange distorted youth,
    Seeking in vain, in all my store,
    One feeling based on truth;
    Amid the maze of petty life
    A clue whereby to move,
    A spot whereon in toil and strife
    To dare to rest and love.
    So constant as my heart would be,
    So fickle as it must,
    ’Twere well for others as for me
    ’Twere dry as summer dust.
    Excitements come, and act and speech
    Flow freely forth; but no,
    Nor they, nor ought beside can reach
    The buried world below.

VI

    Like a child
    In some strange garden left awhile alone,
    I pace about the pathways of the world,
    Plucking light hopes and joys from every stem,
    With qualms of vague misgiving in my heart
    That payment at the last will be required,
    Payment I cannot make, or guilt incurred,
    And shame to be endured.

VII
    Roused by importunate knocks
    I rose, I turned the key, and let them in,
    First one, anon another, and at length
    In troops they came; for how could I, who once
    Had let in one, nor looked him in the face,
    Show scruples e’er again? So in they came,
    A noisy band of revellers, vain hopes,
    Wild fancies, fitful joys; and there they sit
    In my heart’s holy place, and through the night
    Carouse, to leave it when the cold grey dawn
    Gleams from the East, to tell me that the time
    For watching and for thought bestowed is gone.

VIII

    O kind protecting Darkness! as a child
    Flies back to bury in its mother’s lap
    His shame and his confusion, so to thee,
    O Mother Night, come I! within the folds
    Of thy dark robe hide thou me close; for I
    So long, so heedless, with external things
    Have played the liar, that whate’er I see,
    E’en these white glimmering curtains, yon bright stars,
    Which to the rest rain comfort down, for me
    Smiling those smiles, which I may not return,
    Or frowning frowns of fierce triumphant malice,
    As angry claimants or expectants sure
    Of that I promised and may not perform,
    Look me in the face! O hide me, Mother Night!

IX

    Once more the wonted road I tread,
    Once more dark heavens above me spread,
    Upon the windy down I stand,
    My station whence the circling land
    Lies mapped and pictured wide below;
    Such as it was, such e’en again,
    Long dreary bank, and breadth of plain
    By hedge or tree unbroken; lo,
    A few grey

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

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;
Pass aside, nor make to die,
—In the woodland, on the mountain,
Thou art mine, and I am thine.

So I passed.—Amid the uplands,
In the forests, on whose skirts
Pace unstartled, feed unfearing
Do the roe-deer and the red,
While I hungered, while I thirsted,
While the night was deepest dark,
Who was I, that thou should’st meet me?
Who was I, thou didst not pass?
Who was I, that I should say to thee
Thou art mine, and I am thine?

To the air from whence thou camest
Thou returnest, thou art gone;
Self-created, discreated,
Re-created, ever fresh,
Ever young!——
As a lake its mirrored mountains
At a moment, unregretting,
Unresisting, unreclaiming,
Without preface, without question,
On the silent shifting levels
Lets depart,
Shows, effaces and replaces
For what is, anon is not;
What has been, again’s to be;
Ever new and ever young
Thou art mine, and I am thine.

Art thou she that walks the skies,
That rides the starry night?
I know not————
For my meanness dares not claim the truth
Thy loveliness declares.
But the face thou show’st the world is not
The face thou show’st to me;
And the look that I have looked in
Is of none but me beheld.
I know not; but I know
I am thine, and thou art mine.

And I watch: the orb behind
As it fleeteth, faint and fair
In the depth of azure night,
In the violet blank, I trace
By an outline faint and fair
Her whom none but I beheld.
By her orb she moveth slow,
Graceful-slow, serenely firm,
Maiden-Goddess! while her robe
The adoring planets kiss.
And I too cower and ask,
Wert thou mine, and was I thine?

Hath a cloud o’ercast the sky?
Is it cloud upon the mountain-sides
Or haze of dewy river-banks
Below?—
Or around me,
To enfold me, to conceal,
Doth a mystic magic veil,
A celestial separation,
As of curtains hymeneal,
Undiscerned yet all excluding,
Interpose?
For the pine-tree boles are dimmer,
And the stars bedimmed above;
In perspective brief, uncertain,
Are the forest-alleys closed,
And to whispers indistinctest
The resounding torrents lulled.
Can it be, and can it be?
Upon Earth and here below,
In the woodland at my side
Thou art with me, thou art here.

’Twas the vapour of the perfume
Of the presence that should be,
That enwrapt me!
That enwraps us,
O my Goddess, O my Queen!
And I turn
At thy feet to fall before thee;
And thou wilt not:
At thy feet to kneel and reach and kiss thy finger-tips;
And thou wilt not:
And I feel thine arms that stay me,
And I feel————
O mine own, mine own, mine own,
I am thine, and thou art mine!

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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 bosom’s 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’ and ‘so,’
And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’
Enough that in our soul and heart
Thou, whatso’er Thou may’st be, art.

Unseen, secure in that high shrine
Acknowledged present and divine,
I will not ask some upper air,
Some future day to place Thee there;
Nor say, nor yet deny, such men
And women saw Thee thus and then:
Thy name was such, and there or here
To him or her Thou didst appear.

Do only Thou in that dim shrine,
Unknown or known, remain, divine;
There, or if not, at least in eyes
That scan the fact that round them lies,
The hand to sway, the judgment guide,
In sight and sense Thyself divide:
Be Thou but there, in soul and heart,
I will not ask to feel Thou art.

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I have seen higher holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet am I panting for a little ease;
I’ll 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 would’st choose!

The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;
Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do
Amid the things allowed thee live and love;
Some day thou shalt it view.

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On grass, on gravel, in the sun,
Or now beneath the shade,
They went, in pleasant Kensington,
A prentice and a maid.

That Sunday morning’s April glow,
How should it not impart
A stir about the veins that flow
To feed the youthful heart.

Ah! years may come, and years may bring
The truth that is not bliss,
But will they bring another thing
That can compare with this?

I read it in that arm she lays
So soft on his; her mien,
Her step, her very gown betrays
(What in her eyes were seen)
That not in vain the young buds round,
The cawing birds above,
The air, the incense of the ground,
Are whispering, breathing love.

Ah I years may come, &c.

To inclination, young and blind,
So perfect, as they lent,
By purest innocence confined
Unconscious free consent.
Persuasive power of vernal change,
On this, thine earliest day,
Canst thou have found in all thy range
One fitter type than they?

Ah! years may come, &c.

Th’ high-titled cares of adult strife,
Which we our duties call,
Trades, arts, and politics of life,
Say, have they after all,
One other object, end or use
Than that, for girl and boy,
The punctual earth may still produce
This golden flower of joy.

Ah! years may come, &c.

O odours of new-budding rose,
O lily’s chaste perfume,
O fragrance that didst first unclose
The young Creation’s bloom!
Ye hang around me, while in sun
Anon and now in shade,
I watched in pleasant Kensington
The prentice and the maid.

Ah! years may come, and years may bring
The truth that is not bliss,
But will they bring another thing
That will compare with this?

A London Idyll

Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said:
She heard them, and she started, and she rose,
As in the act to speak; the sudden thought
And unconsidered impulse led her on.
In act to speak she rose, but with the sense
Of all the eyes of that mixed company
Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age
Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical;
Some in whom vapours of their own conceit,
As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars,
Still blotted out their good, the best at best
By frivolous laugh and prate conventional
All too untuned for all she thought to say
With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek
Flushed-up, and o’er-flushed itself, blank night her soul
Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned.
She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon
With recollections clear, august, sublime,
Of God’s great truth, and right immutable,
Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind
Came summoned of her will, in self-negation
Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness,
She queened it o’er her weakness. At the spell
Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek
Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far
But that one pulse of one indignant thought
Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood
She spoke. God in her spoke and made her heard.

A Protest

Sweet streamlet bason! at thy side
Weary and faint within me cried
My longing heart, In such pure deep
How sweet it were to sit and sleep;
To feel each passage from without
Close up, above me and about,
Those circling waters crystal clear,
That calm impervious atmosphere!
There on thy pearly pavement pure,
To lean, and feel myself secure,
Or through the dim-lit inter-space,
Afar at whiles upgazing trace
The dimpling bubbles dance around
Upon thy smooth exterior face;
Or idly list the dreamy sound
Of ripples lightly flung, above
That home, of peace, if not of love.

A River Pool

Across the sea, along the shore,
In numbers more and ever more,
From lonely hut and busy town,
The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,
Ye silly folk Galilee?
The reed that in the wind doth shake?
The weed that washes in the lake?
The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?
A young man preaching in a boat.
What was it ye went out to hear
By sea and land from far and near?
A teacher? Rather seek the feet
Of those who sit in Moses' seat.
Go humbly seek, and bow to them,
Far off in great Jerusalem.
From them that in her courts ye saw,
Her perfect doctors of the law,
What is it came ye here to note?
A young man preaching in a boat.

A prophet! Boys and women weak!
Declare, or cease to rave;
Whence is it he hath learned to speak?
Say, who his doctrine gave?
A prophet? Prophet wherefore he
Of all in Israel tribes?
He teacheth with authority,
And not as do the Scribes.

Across The Sea Along The Shore

Over a mountain slope with lentisk, and with abounding
Arbutus, and the red oak overtufted, ’mid a noontide
Now glowing fervidly, the Leto-born, the divine one,
Artemis, Arcadian wood-rover, alone, hunt-weary,
Unto a dell cent’ring many streamlets her foot unerring
Had guided. Platanus with fig-tree shaded, a hollow,
Shaded a waterfall, where pellucid yet abundant
Streams from perpetual full-flowing sources a current:
Lower on either bank in sunshine flowered the oleanders:
Plenteous under a rock green herbage here to the margin
Grew with white poplars overcrowning. She thither arrived,
Unloosening joyfully the vest enfolded upon her,
Swift her divine shoulders discovering, swiftly revealing
Her maidenly bosom and all her beauty beneath it,
To the river water overflowing to receive her
Yielded her ambrosial nakedness. But with an instant
Conscious, with the instant the’ immortal terrific anger
Flew to the guilty doer: that moment, where amid amply
Concealing plane-leaves he the’ opportunity pursued,
Long vainly, possessed, unwise, Actæon, of hunters,
Hapless of Arcadian, and most misguided of hunters,
Knew the divine mandate, knew fate directed upon him.
He, to the boughs crouching, with dreadful joy the desired one
Had viewed descending, viewed as in a dream, disarraying,
And the unclad shoulders awestruck, awestruck let his eyes see
The maidenly bosom, but not dim fear fell upon them
Not more had witnessed. Not, therefore, less the forest through
Ranging, their master ceasing thenceforth to remember,
With the instant together came trooping, as to devour him,
His dogs from the ambush. Transformed suddenly before them,
He fled, an antlered stag wild with terror to the mountain.
She, the liquid stream in, her limbs carelessly reclining,
The flowing waters collected grateful about her.

Actæon

"Old things need not be therefore true,"
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,
And yet consider it again!

The souls of now two thousand years
Have laid up here their toils and tears,
And all the earnings of their pain,--
Ah, yet consider it again!

We! what do we see? each a space
Of some few yards before his face;
Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!

Alas! the great world goes its way,
And takes its truth from each new day;
They do not quit, nor can retain,
Far less consider it again.

Arthur Hugh Clough