<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=348522" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Amours de Voyage, Canto III</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotunda, <br>Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls, <br>Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us, <br>Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme; <br>Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us; <br>Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain; <br>Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.-- <br>Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war, <br>Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, <br>Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, <br>Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles, <br>Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply, <br>Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, <br>Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,-- <br>Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, <br>Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper,--on the way to Florence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why doesn't Mr. Claude come with us? you ask.--We don't know, <br>You should know better than we. He talked of the Vatican marbles; <br>But I can't wholly believe that this was the actual reason,-- <br>He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us. <br>Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper. To change so <br>Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,-- <br>Not quite right. I declare, I really almost am offended: <br>I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so. <br>Not that I greatly regret it, for dear Georgina distinctly <br>Wishes for nothing so much as to show her adroitness. But, oh, my <br>Pen will not write any more;--let us say nothing further about it. <br>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * <br>Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive; <br>So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression <br>Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me. <br>Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you? <br>Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas <br>That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy; <br>I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.-- <br>When does he make advances?--He thinks that women should woo him; <br>Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted. <br>She that should love him must look for small love in return,--like the ivy <br>On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and <br>E'en to get that must go searching all round with her humble embraces. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">II. Claude to Eustace,--from Rome</div><div style="margin:10px 0">. Tell me, my friend, do you think that the grain would sprout in the furrow, <br>Did it not truly accept as its summum and ultimum bonum <br>That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in? <br>Would it have force to develop and open its young cotyledons, <br>Could it compare, and reflect, and examine one thing with another? <br>Would it endure to accomplish the round of its natural functions <br>Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence? <br>While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia, <br>Vexed in the squally seas as we lay by Capraja and Elba, <br>Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel, <br>Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows, <br>'This is Nature,' I said: 'we are born as it were from her waters; <br>Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncared-for, <br>Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge, <br>Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed.' <br>This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer; <br>And as unthinking I sat in the hall of the famed Ariadne, <br>Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble. <br>It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer. <br>Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">III. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot <br>Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I <br>Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers, <br>What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters? <br>Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle; <br>No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it. <br>Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the <br>Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic? <br>Why not fight?--In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket; <br>In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it; <br>In the third, just at present I'm studying ancient marbles; <br>In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country; <br>In the fifth--I forget, but four good reasons are ample. <br>Meantime, pray let 'em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion. <br>So that I 'list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs! <br>Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae; though it would seem this <br>Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-come kind: <br>Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere! <br>Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration, <br>Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in; <br>But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden, <br>Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever, <br>Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,-- <br>Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless unfruitful blossom. <br>Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine, <br>Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaus <br>Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia, <br>Evermore growing, and when in their growth to the prospect attaining, <br>Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city, <br>Withering still at the sight which still they upgrow to encounter. <br>Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces, <br>Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, <br>Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not, <br>Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow, <br>Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to, <br>Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination! <br>Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">V. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper,--from Florence.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dearest Miss Roper,--Alas! we are all at Florence quite safe, and <br>You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing! <br>We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the troubles. <br>Now you are really besieged; they tell us it soon will be over; <br>Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city. <br>Do you see Mr. Claude?--I thought he might do something for you. <br>I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful. <br>What is he doing? I wonder;--still studying Vatican marbles? <br>Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition? <br>Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage or steamer, <br>And, pour passer le temps, till the tedious journey be ended, <br>Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one; <br>And, pour passer le temps, with the terminus all but in prospect, <br>Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven. <br>Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion! <br>Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only! <br>Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion, <br>Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our knowledge! <br>But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance, <br>Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage procession? <br>But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service? <br>But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract? <br>But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?-- <br>Ah, but the bride, meantime,--do you think she sees it as he does? <br>But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence, <br>Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action? <br>But for assurance within a limitless ocean divine, o'er <br>Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface <br>Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,-- <br>But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it, <br>Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here? <br>Ah, but the women,--God bless them! they don't think at all about it. <br>Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings <br>Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract, <br>Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding, <br>Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not, <br>Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,-- <br>Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided. <br>Allah is great, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet. <br>Ah, but the women, alas! they don't look at it that way. <br>Juxtaposition is great;--but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden <br>Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her, <br>Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up with,-- <br>Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her <br>That she is but for a space, an ad-interim solace and pleasure,-- <br>That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something, <br>Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,-- <br>Which amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not <br>Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving, and so exacting, <br>Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you? <br>Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you, <br>Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and--leave you? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juxtaposition is great,--but, you tell me, affinity greater. <br>Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser, <br>Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favour of juxtaposition, <br>Potent, efficient, in force,--for a time; but none, let me tell you, <br>Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah, <br>None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect. <br>Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant-girl to the princess, <br>Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto,-- <br>Vir sum, nihil faeminei,--and e'en to the uttermost circle, <br>All that is Nature's is I, and I all things that are Nature's. <br>Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition, <br>That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at: <br>I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden-stuff panniers; <br>I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window, <br>On sunny slab of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard, <br>Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me; <br>Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint but a faithful assurance, <br>E'en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the forest, <br>Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greets me; <br>And to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and perversions, <br>Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence, <br>Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling; <br>Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful, <br>All as I go on my way, with a pleasure sincere and unmingled. <br>Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at; <br>As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing, <br>As a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures, <br>Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only <br>This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving, <br>Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters: <br>So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase, a <br>Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honour. <br>But, from the tumult escaping, 'tis pleasant, of drumming and shouting, <br>Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood, <br>And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings <br>Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o'er <br>Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters. <br>Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not, <br>No, you should not have used it. But, oh, great Heavens, I repel it! <br>Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly <br>Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonour, <br>Yea, my own heart's own writing, my soul's own signature! Ah, no! <br>I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me. <br>No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things, <br>This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing. <br>No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied; <br>Bind and engage myself deep;--and lo, on the following morning <br>It was all e'en as before, like losings in games played for nothing. <br>Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance <br>At the first step breaking down in its pitiful role of evasion, <br>When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements, <br>Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,-- <br>Stood unexpecting, unconscious. She spoke not of obligations, <br>Knew not of debt--ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">X. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hang this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil! <br>Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber, <br>Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing. <br>What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of men? Have compassion; <br>Be favourable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge; <br>Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the fields, my brothers, <br>Tranquilly, happily lie,--and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio <br>Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence; <br>Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, <br>With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain, <br>Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:-- <br>So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I, <br>Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl, <br>Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;* <br>Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone, <br>Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters, <br>Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro <br>(Haunt, even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows, <br>Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces). <br>Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations, <br>Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:-- <br>So not seeing I sang; so now--Nor seeing, nor hearing, <br>Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces, <br>Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro, <br>Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters, <br>But on Montorio's height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the <br>Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens, <br>Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the Romans,-- <br>But on Montorio's height, looking forth to the vapoury mountains, <br>Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,-- <br>But on Montorio's height, with these weary soldiers by me, <br>Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">* -- domus Albuneae resonantis, <br>Et praeceps Anio, et Tibuni lucus, et uda <br>Mobilibus pomaria rivis </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII. Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear Miss Roper,--It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said <br>Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions. <br>Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina. <br>It is so disagreeable and so annoying to think of! <br>If it could only be known, though we may never meet him again, that <br>It was all George's doing, and we were entirely unconscious, <br>It would extremely relieve--Your ever affectionate Mary. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">P.S. (1) <br>Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted. <br>So you have seen him,--indeed, and guessed,--how dreadfully clever! <br>What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly? <br>Charming!--but wait for a moment, I haven't read through the letter. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">P.S. (2) <br>Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it. <br>If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so. <br>Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage. <br>It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for. <br>Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you. <br>Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter. <br>Only don't tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret, <br>That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">P.S. (3) <br>I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday. <br>Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage <br>Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter. <br>It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly <br>As if it had not occurred: and I do not think he would like it. <br>I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over <br>We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan; <br>There to meet friends of Papa's, I am told, at the Croce di Malta <br>Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII. Claude to Eustace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city,-- <br>So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it. <br>So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding. <br>I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence. <br>Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon <br>Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together, <br>As to intentions forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded, <br>Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it happened, an offer <br>(No common favour) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection, <br>Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me. <br>How could I go? Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation <br>Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers! <br>Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries, <br>Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman, <br>Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal, <br>That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,--not, I think, by Georgina: <br>She, however, ere this,--and that is the best of the story,-- <br>She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone--honey-mooning. <br>So--on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city. <br>Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of; <br>Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio's waters, nor deep en- <br>Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace; <br>Tibur I shall not see;--but something better I shall see. <br>Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses; <br>Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins! <br>Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes! <br>Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano, <br>Seen from Montorio's height, Tibur and Aesula's hills! <br>Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending, <br>Sinks o'er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun, <br>Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign, <br>Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old, <br>E'en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow, <br>Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, inurned in the hill!-- <br>Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal! <br>Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!</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> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=348522" data-title="Amours de Voyage, Canto III de Arthur Hugh Clough" data-description="Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotunda, Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls, Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us, Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supr..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black