184
POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
'Tis the coward acquiescence
In a destiny's behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all that's truest, noblest, best:
'Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroyed.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by duty's prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!
In a destiny's behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all that's truest, noblest, best:
'Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroyed.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by duty's prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!
LIFE IS STRUGGLE.
To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain,
And give oneself a world of pain;
Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot,
Imperious, supple—God knows what,
For what's all one to have or not;
O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!
For 'tis not joy, it is not gain,
It is not in itself a bliss,
Only it is precisely this
That keeps us all alive.
And give oneself a world of pain;
Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot,
Imperious, supple—God knows what,
For what's all one to have or not;
O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!
For 'tis not joy, it is not gain,
It is not in itself a bliss,
Only it is precisely this
That keeps us all alive.
To say we truly feel the pain,
And quite are sinking with the strain;—
Entirely, simply, undeceived,
Believe, and say we ne'er believed
The object, e'en were it achieved,
And quite are sinking with the strain;—
Entirely, simply, undeceived,
Believe, and say we ne'er believed
The object, e'en were it achieved,
