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.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In the Depths
It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?
’Tis not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know on whom it has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.
Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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All Is Well
Whate'er you dream, with doubt possessed,
Keep, keep it snug within your breast,
And lay you down and take your rest;
And when you wake, to work again,
The wind it blows, the vessel goes,
And where and whither, no one knows.
'Twill all be well: no need of care;
Though how it will, and when, and where,
We cannot see, and can't declare.
In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,
'Tis not in vain, and not for nought,
The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
Though where and whither, no one knows
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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 parti-coloured web.
How rich the universe! '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?
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In a Lecture Room
AWAY, haunt thou me not,
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 skyey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hilltops high,
Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?
Why labor at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In Stratis Viarum
Blessed are those who have not seen,
And who have yet believed
The witness, here that has not been,
From heaven they have received.
Blessed are those who have not known
The things that stand before them,
And for a vision of their own
Can piously ignore them.
So let me think whate’er befall,
That in the city duly
Some men there are who love at all,
Some women who love truly;
And that upon two millions odd
Transgressors in sad plenty,
Mercy will of a gracious God
Be shown—because of twenty.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Song of Autumn
My wind is turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o’er
My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dank autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.
A roofless ruin lies my home,
For winds to blow and rains to pour;
One frosty night befell, and lo,
I find my summer days are o’er:
The heart bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It had what e’en to Memory now
Returns no more, no more.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ah! Yet Consider it Again!
"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.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Noli Aemulari
In controversial foul impureness
The peace that is thy light to thee
Quench not: in faith and inner sureness
Possess thy soul and let it be.
No violence--perverse--persistent--
What cannot be can bring to be;
No zeal what is make more existent,
And strife but blinds the eyes that see.
What though in blood their souls embruing,
The great, the good and wise they curse,
Still sinning, what they know not doing;
Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse.
By curses, by denunciation,
The coming fate they cannot stay;
Nor thou, by fiery indignation,
Though just, accelerate the day.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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