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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118120" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Blank Misgivings of a Creature moving about in Worlds not realised</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,<br>One-third departed of the mortal span,<br>Carrying on the child into the man,<br>Nothing into reality. Sails rent,<br>And rudder broken,—reason impotent—<br>Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare<br>On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare<br>To do and to be done by, well content.<br>So was it from the first, so is it yet;<br>Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set<br>On any human lips, methinks was sin—<br>Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will<br>Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein<br>God, unidentified, was thought-of still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though to the vilest things beneath the moon<br>For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart,<br>And for the moment’s sympathy let part<br>My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,<br>My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon,<br>Almost, as gained: and though aside I start,<br>Belie Thee daily, hourly,—still Thou art,<br>Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon;<br>How much so e’er I sin, whate’er I do<br>Of evil, still the sky above is blue,<br>The stars look down in beauty as before<br>It is enough to walk as best we may,<br>To walk, and sighing, dream of that blest day<br>When ill we cannot quell shall be no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day!<br>Forgiveness too, or e’er we part, from each,<br>As I do give it. so must I beseech<br>I owe all much, much more than I can pay;<br>Therefore it is I go; how could I stay<br>Where every look commits me to fresh debt,<br>And to pay little I must borrow yet I<br>Enough of this already, now away!<br>With silent woods and hills untenanted<br>Let me go commune; under thy sweet gloom,<br>O kind maternal Darkness, hide my head<br>The day may come I yet may re-assume<br>My place, and, these tired limbs recruited, seek<br>The task for which I now am all too weak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way,<br>Bearing the liar’s curse upon my head;<br>Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed<br>On food which does the present craving stay,<br>But may be clean-denied me e’en to-day,<br>And tho’ ’twere certain, yet were ought but bread;<br>Letting—for so they say, it seems, I said,<br>And I am all too weak to disobey!<br>Therefore for me sweet Nature’s scenes reveal not<br>Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not;<br>Sweet eyes pass off me uninspired; yea, more,<br>The golden tide of opportunity<br>Flows wafting-in friendships and better,—I<br>Unseeing, listless, pace along the shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   V</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> How often sit I, poring o’er<br>  My strange distorted youth,<br> Seeking in vain, in all my store,<br>  One feeling based on truth;<br> Amid the maze of petty life<br>  A clue whereby to move,<br> A spot whereon in toil and strife<br>  To dare to rest and love.<br> So constant as my heart would be,<br>  So fickle as it must,<br> ’Twere well for others as for me<br>  ’Twere dry as summer dust.<br> Excitements come, and act and speech<br>  Flow freely forth; but no,<br> Nor they, nor ought beside can reach<br>  The buried world below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   —— Like a child</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In some strange garden left awhile alone,<br>I pace about the pathways of the world,<br>Plucking light hopes and joys from every stem,<br>With qualms of vague misgiving in my heart<br>That payment at the last will be required,<br>Payment I cannot make, or guilt incurred,<br>And shame to be endured.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   —— Roused by importunate knocks</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I rose, I turned the key, and let them in,<br>First one, anon another, and at length<br>In troops they came; for how could I, who once<br>Had let in one, nor looked him in the face,<br>Show scruples e’er again? So in they came,<br>A noisy band of revellers,—vain hopes,<br>Wild fancies, fitful joys; and there they sit<br>In my heart’s holy place, and through the night<br>Carouse, to leave it when the cold grey dawn<br>Gleams from the East, to tell me that the time<br>For watching and for thought bestowed is gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   VIII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O kind protecting Darkness! as a child<br>Flies back to bury in its mother’s lap<br>His shame and his confusion, so to thee,<br>O Mother Night, come I! within the folds<br>Of thy dark robe hide thou me close; for I<br>So long, so heedless, with external things<br>Have played the liar, that whate’er I see,<br>E’en these white glimmering curtains, yon bright stars,<br>Which to the rest rain comfort down, for me<br>Smiling those smiles, which I may not return,<br>Or frowning frowns of fierce triumphant malice,<br>As angry claimants or expectants sure<br>Of that I promised and may not perform,<br>Look me in the face! O hide me, Mother Night!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   IX</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once more the wonted road I tread,<br>Once more dark heavens above me spread,<br>Upon the windy down I stand,<br>My station whence the circling land<br>Lies mapped and pictured wide below;—<br>Such as it was, such e’en again,<br>Long dreary bank, and breadth of plain<br>By hedge or tree unbroken;—lo,<br>A few grey woods can only show<br>How vain their aid, and in the sense<br>Of one unaltering impotence,<br>Relieving not, meseems enhance<br>The sovereign dulness of the expanse.<br>Yet marks where human hand hath been,<br>Bare house, unsheltered village, space<br>Of ploughed and fenceless tilth between<br>(Such aspect as methinks may be<br>In some half-settled colony),<br>From Nature vindicate the scene;<br>A wide, and yet disheartening view,<br>A melancholy world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">    ’Tis true,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Most true; and yet, like those strange smiles<br>By fervent hope or tender thought<br>From distant happy regions brought,<br>Which upon some sick bed are seen<br>To glorify a pale worn face<br>With sudden beauty,—so at whiles<br>Lights have descended, hues have been,<br>To clothe with half-celestial grace<br>The bareness of the desert place.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Since so it is, so be it still!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Could only thou, my heart, be taught<br>To treasure, and in act fulfil<br>The lesson which the sight has brought;<br>In thine own dull and dreary state<br>To work and patiently to wait:<br>Little thou think’st in thy despair<br>How soon the o’ershaded sun may shine,<br>And e’en the dulling clouds combine<br>To bless with lights and hues divine<br>That region desolate and bare,<br>Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Still doth the coward heart complain;<br>The hour may come, and come in vain;<br>The branch that withered lies and dead<br>No suns can force to lift its head.<br>True!—yet how little thou canst tell<br>How much in thee is ill or well;<br>Nor for thy neighbour nor for thee,<br>Be sure, was life designed to be<br>A draught of dull complacency.<br>One Power too is it, who doth give<br>The food without us, and within<br>The strength that makes it nutritive:<br>He bids the dry bones rise and live,<br>And e’en in hearts depraved to sin<br>Some sudden, gracious influence,<br>May give the long-lost good again,<br>And wake within the dormant sense<br>And love of good;—for mortal men,<br>So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see<br>Defeat itself is victory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So be it: yet, O Good and Great,<br>In whom in this bedarkened state<br>I fain am struggling to believe,<br>Let me not ever cease to grieve,<br>Nor lose the consciousness of ill<br>Within me;—and refusing still<br>To recognise in things around<br>What cannot truly there be found,<br>Let me not feel, nor be it true,<br>That, while each daily task I do,<br>I still am giving day by day<br>My precious things within away<br>(Those thou didst give to keep as thine),<br>And casting, do whate’er I may,<br>My heavenly pearls to earthly swine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Arthur+Hugh+Clough">Arthur Hugh Clough</a><div class=q>
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