I SAW again the spirits on a day, Where on the earth in mournful case they lay; Five porches were there, and a pool, and round, Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground, Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent, The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent. For a great angel came, 't was said, and stirred The pool at certain seasons, and the word Was, with this people of the sick, that they Who in the waters here their limbs Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?” And then, as weary of in vain renewing His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing, "I know not, I must do as other men are doing." But what the waters of that pool might be, Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy; And whether he, long waiting, did attain Deliverance from the burden of his pain There with the rest; or whether, yet before, Some more diviner stranger passed the door With his small company into that sad place, And breathing hope into the sick man's face, [go, Bade him take up his bed, and rise and What the end were, and whether it were so, Further than this I saw not, neither know. 1849. 1862. FROM AMOURS DE VOYAGE EN ROUTE Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits, Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth, Come, let us go,-to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered, Where every breath even now changes to ether divine. Come let us go; though withal a voice whisper, "The world that we live in, Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib; 'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel; Clough's long poem in hexameters, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich, interesting as it is, is of too little importance and poetic value in proportion to its length, to be included in these selections; and no parts of it are detachable as extracts. Some examples of Clough's use of hexameters (and elegiacs) may however be taken from his other long poem, the Amours de Voyage, which suffer comparatively little in being separated from their context, and are equally characteristic of some of Clough's moods. They are also interesting as a contrast to Byron's verses on Rome, in Childe Harold and elsewhere. On the Amours de Voyage, see especially Bage hot's Essay on Clough. Let who would 'scape and be free go to his chamber and think; 'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser; 'Tis but to go and have been."-Come, little bark! let us go. ROME ROME disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it. Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo, Merely a marvelous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots. Te gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed, Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture! No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea? Yet of solidity much, but of splendor little is extant: "Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!" their Emperor vaunted; "Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!" the Tourist may answer. THE PANTHEON No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not, Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so! Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns, Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them? Or, on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches, Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins, and children, But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship; He, who with pure dew laveth of Castaly His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia The oak forest and the wood that bore him, Delos' and Patara's own Apollo. ON MONTORIO'S HEIGHT TIBUR is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyri cal cadence ; Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain, Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace : So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I, Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl, Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me; Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone, Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters, Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro (Haunt, even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows, Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces), Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations, Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace : So not seeing I sang; so now-Nor seeing, nor hearing, Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces, Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro, Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters, But on Montorio's height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens, Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the Romans, But on Montorio's height, looking forth to the vapory mountains, lost il Moro;— Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice. I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sit Moping and mourning here,-for her, and myself much smaller. Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them? Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous pinions of angels Unto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their labor, And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and burning moisture Wiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger, unhappy, Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and endeavor? All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for Rome nor Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament the Wreck of the Lombard youth, and the ENVOI So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil! Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good? Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer. Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age. Say, "I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days: But," so finish the word, “I was writ in a Roman chamber, When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France." 1848-1849. 1858. PESCHIERA WHAT Voice did on my spirit fall, The tricolor-a trampled rag— I see the Croat soldier stand Yet not in vain, although in vain, OR shall I say, Vain word, false thought, Not ours to give or lose is life : That rivers flow into the sea Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow, No graven images may be From whom advancement may befall; Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive: FROM DIPSYCHUS 1862. "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, " 't were 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 Youths green and happy in first love, And men caught out in what the world And almost every one when age, This world is very odd we see, Being common sense, it can't be sin These juicy meats, this flashing wine, They have a singular coherence. Oh yes, my pensive youth, abstain; Trust me, I've read your German sage Whom God deludes is well deluded. 1849. 1869. Where are the great, whom thou would'st wish to praise thee? Where are the pure, whom thou would'st choose to love thee? Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee, Whose high commands would cheer, whose chiding raise thee? Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find When the enemy is near thee, In our hands we will upbear thee, Call when all good friends have left thee, Call, and following close behind thee There shall haste, and there shall find thee, Help, sure help. When the panic comes upon thee, Oh, and if thou dost not call, 1849. 1862. SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH SAY not the struggle nought availeth, The labor and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, [slowly, In front, the sun climbs slow, how But westward, look, the land is bright. 1849. 1862. |