POEMS
OF
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Engraved by C. H. Jeens.

POEMS
OF
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

SOMETIME FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE
OXFORD

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898

First published elsewhere. First printed for Macmillan & Co.
1891. Reprinted 1895, 1898.

CONTENTS.

EARLY POEMS.

AN EVENING WALK IN SPRING.

It was but some few nights ago

I wandered down this quiet lane;

I pray that I may never know

The feelings then I felt, again.

The leaves were shining all about,

You might almost have seen them springing;

I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout,

And all the little birds were singing.

It was not dull, the air was clear,

All lovely sights and sounds to deal,

My eyes could see, my ears could hear,

Only my heart, it would not feel;

And yet that it should not be so,

My mind kept telling me within;

Though nought was wrong that I did know,

I thought I must have done some sin.

For I am sure as I can be,

That they who have been wont to look

On all in Nature’s face they see,

Even as in the Holy Book;

They who with pure and humble eyes

Have gazed and read her lessons high,

And taught their spirits to be wise

In love and human sympathy,—

That they can soon and surely tell

When aught has gone amiss within,

When the mind is not sound and well,

Nor the soul free from taint of sin.

For as God’s Spirit from above,

So Beauty is to them below,

And when they slight that holy love,

Their hearts that presence may not know.

So I turned home the way I came,

With downcast looks and heavy heart,

A guilty thing and full of shame,

With a dull grief that had no smart.

It chanced when I was nearly there

That all at once I raised my eyes—

Was it a dream, or vision rare,

That then they saw before them rise?

I see it now, before me here,

As often, often I have done,

As bright as it could then appear,

All shining in the setting sun.

Elms, with their mantling foliage spread,

And tall dark poplars rising out,

And blossomed orchards, white and red,

Cast, like a long low fence, about;

And in the midst the grey church-tower,

With one slight turret at its side,

Bringing to mind with silent power

Those thousand homes the elm-trees hide.

And then there came the thought of one

Who on his bed of sickness lay,

Whilst I beneath the setting sun

Was dreaming this sweet hour away.

I thought of hearts for him that beat,

Of aching eyes their watch that kept;

The sister’s and the mother’s seat—

And oh! I thought I should have wept.

And oh! my spirit melted then,

The weight fell off me that I bore,

And now I felt in truth again

The lovely things that stood before.

O blessed, blessed scene, to thee,

For that thy sweet and softening power,

I could have fallen upon my knee,

Thy stately elms, thy grey church-tower.

So then I took my homeward way,

My heart in sweet and holy frame,

With spirit, I may dare to say,

More good and soft than when I came.

1836

AN INCIDENT.

’Twas on a sunny summer day

I trod a mighty city’s street,

And when I started on my way

My heart was full of fancies sweet;

But soon, as nothing could be seen,

But countenances sharp and keen,

Nought heard or seen around but told

Of something bought or something sold,

And none that seemed to think or care

That any save himself was there,—

Full soon my heart began to sink

With a strange shame and inward pain,

For I was sad within to think

Of this absorbing love of gain,

And various thoughts my bosom tost;

When suddenly my path there crossed,

Locked hand in hand with one another,

A little maiden and her brother—

A little maiden, and she wore

Around her waist a pinafore.

And hand in hand along the street

This pretty pair did softly go,

And as they went, their little feet

Moved in short even steps and slow:

It was a sight to see and bless,

That little sister’s tenderness;

One hand a tidy basket bore

Of flowers and fruit—a chosen store,

Such as kind friends oft send to others—

And one was fastened in her brother’s.

It was a voice of meaning sweet,

And spake amid that scene of strife

Of home and homely duties meet,

And charities of daily life;

And often, should my spirit fail,

And under cold strange glances quail,

’Mid busy shops and busier throng,

That speed upon their ways along

The thick and crowded thoroughfare,

I’ll call to mind that little pair.

1836

THE THREAD OF TRUTH.

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?

1839

REVIVAL.

So I went wrong,

Grievously wrong, but folly crushed itself,

And vanity o’ertoppling fell, and time

And healthy discipline and some neglect,

Labour and solitary hours revived

Somewhat, at least, of that original frame.

Oh, well do I remember then the days

When on some grassy slope (what time the sun

Was sinking, and the solemn eve came down

With its blue vapour upon field and wood

And elm-embosomed spire) once more again

I fed on sweet emotion, and my heart

With love o’erflowed, or hushed itself in fear

Unearthly, yea celestial. Once again

My heart was hot within me, and, me seemed,

I too had in my body breath to wind

The magic horn of song; I too possessed

Up-welling in my being’s depths a fount

Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill

The golden urns of verse.

1839

THE SHADY LANE.

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.

1839

THE HIGHER COURAGE.[1]

Come back again, my olden heart!—

Ah, fickle spirit and untrue,

I bade the only guide depart

Whose faithfulness I surely knew:

I said, my heart is all too soft;

He who would climb and soar aloft

Must needs keep ever at his side

The tonic of a wholesome pride.

Come back again, my olden heart!—

Alas, I called not then for thee;

I called for Courage, and apart

From Pride if Courage could not be,

Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find

In thee a power to lift the mind

This low and grovelling joy above—

’Tis but the proud can truly love.

Come back again, my olden heart!—

With incrustations of the years

Uncased as yet,—as then thou wert,

Full-filled with shame and coward fears:

Wherewith amidst a jostling throng

Of deeds, that each and all were wrong,

The doubting soul, from day to day,

Uneasy paralytic lay.

Come back again, my olden heart!

I said, Perceptions contradict,

Convictions come, anon depart,

And but themselves as false convict.

Assumptions, hasty, crude and vain,

Full oft to use will Science deign;

The corks the novice plies to-day

The swimmer soon shall cast away.

Come back again, my olden heart!

I said, Behold, I perish quite,

Unless to give me strength to start,

I make myself my rule of right:

It must be, if I act at all,

To save my shame I have at call

The plea of all men understood,—

Because I willed it, it is good.

Come back again, my olden heart!

I know not if in very deed

This means alone could aid impart

To serve my sickly spirit’s need;

But clear alike of wild self-will,

And fear that faltered, paltered still,

Remorseful thoughts of after days

A way espy betwixt the ways.

Come back again, old heart! Ah me!

Methinks in those thy coward fears

There might, perchance, a courage be,

That fails in these the manlier years;

Courage to let the courage sink,

Itself a coward base to think,

Rather than not for heavenly light

Wait on to show the truly right.

1840

WRITTEN ON A BRIDGE.

When soft September brings again

To yonder gorse its golden glow,

And Snowdon sends its autumn rain

To bid thy current livelier flow;

Amid that ashen foliage light

When scarlet beads are glistering bright,

While alder boughs unchanged are seen

In summer livery of green;

When clouds before the cooler breeze

Are flying, white and large; with these

Returning, so may I return,

And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern.

1840

A RIVER POOL.

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.

1840

IN A LECTURE-ROOM.

Away, haunt thou not me,

Thou vain Philosophy!

Little hast thou bestead,

Save to perplex the head,

And leave the spirit dead.

Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,

While from the secret treasure-depths below,

Fed by the skiey shower,

And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high,

Wisdom at once, and Power,

Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?

Why labour at the dull mechanic oar,

When the fresh breeze is blowing,

And the strong current flowing,

Right onward to the Eternal Shore?

1840

‘Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised.’

I