Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

QUA CURSUM VENTUS

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, 5
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so- but why the tale reveal
Of those whom, year by year
changed,

Brief absence joined anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,

un

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15

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides

To that, and your own selves, be true. 20

But O blithe breeze; and O great seas,

Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought, 25
One purpose hold where'er they fare,

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land: And never home came shę.

'Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair
Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee.'

They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea:

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20

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle

home

1843

Across the sands of Dee.

1849

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT
AVAILETH

SAY not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour 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,

5

THE THREE FISHERS

THREE fishers went sailing away to the West, Away to the West as the sun went down; Each thought on the woman who loved him

the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town;

Sink down like silence, or a-sudden stream As wind-blown on the wind, as streams a wedding-chime.

But you are wheeling me while I dream,
And we've almost reached the meadow! 105
You may wheel me fast through the sunshine,
You may wheel me fast through the shadow,
But wheel me slowly, brother mine,

Through the green of the sappy meadow;
For the sun, these days have been so fine, 110
Must have touched it over with celandine,
And the southern hawthorn, I divine,
Sheds a muffled shadow.

And the bank will be bare wherever they go,
As dawn, the primrose-girl, goes by,
And alas for heaven's primroses!

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165

Blare the trumpet, and boom the gun,
But, oh, to sit here thus in the sun,
To sit here, feeling my work is done,
While the sands of life so golden run,
And I watch the children's posies,
And my idle heart is whispering,
'Bring whatever the years may bring,
The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing,
And there'll always be primroses.'

Looking before me here in the sun,
I see the Aprils one after one,
Primrosed Aprils one by one,
Primrosed Aprils on and on,
Till the floating prospect closes

In golden glimmers that rise and rise,
And perhaps are gleams of Paradise,
And perhaps too far for mortal eyes -
New years of fresh primroses,
Years of earth's primroses,

170

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180

But when the din is over and gone, Like an eye that opens after pain,

Springs to be, and springs for me

Of distant dim primroses.

I shall see my pale flower shining again;
Like a fair star after a gust of rain
I shall see my pale flower shining again;
Like a glow-worm after the rolling wain
Hath shaken darkness down the lane
I shall see my pale flower shining again;
And it will blow here for two months
more,

135

And it will blow here again next year,
And the year past that, and the year beyond;
And through all the years till my years are

o'er

I shall always find it here.

140

Two worlds are whispering over me,
And there blows a wind of roses
From the backward shore to the shore be-
fore,

Ere a water-fly wimple the silent pond, Or the first green weed appear.

From the shore before to the backward shore, And like two clouds that meet and pour Each through each, till core in core

195

Shining across from the bank above, Shining up from the pond below,