44
POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
We were to grow, and grow I think we may,
And yet bear goodly fruit.
Eve.Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!
Adam. You weary me with your 'Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!'
Peace to the senseless iteration. What!
Because I plucked an apple from a twig
Be damned to death eterne! parted from Good,
Enchained to Ill! No, by the God of gods;
No, by the living will within my breast,
It cannot be, and shall not; and if this,
This guilt of your distracted fantasy,
Be our experiment's sum, thank God for guilt,
Which makes me free!
But thou, poor wife! poor mother, shall I say?
Big with the first maternity of man,
Draw'st from thy teeming womb thick fancies fond,
That with confusion mix thy delicate brain;
Fondest of which and cloudiest call the dream
(Yea, my beloved, hear me, it is a dream)
Of the serpent, and the apple, and the curse:
Fondest of dreams and cloudiest of clouds.
Well I remember, in our marriage bower,
How in the dewiest balminess of rest,
Inarmèd as we lay, sudden at once
Up from my side you started, screaming 'Guilt!'
And 'Lost! lost! lost!' I on my elbow rose,
And rubbed unwilling eyes, and cried, 'Eve! Eve!
My love! my wife!' and knit anew the embrace,
And drew thee to me close, and calmed thy fear,
And wooed thee back to sleep. In vain; for soon
I felt thee gone, and opening widest eyes,
Beheld thee kneeling on the turf, hands now
Clenched and uplifted high, now vainly outspread
And yet bear goodly fruit.
Eve.Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!
Adam. You weary me with your 'Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!'
Peace to the senseless iteration. What!
Because I plucked an apple from a twig
Be damned to death eterne! parted from Good,
Enchained to Ill! No, by the God of gods;
No, by the living will within my breast,
It cannot be, and shall not; and if this,
This guilt of your distracted fantasy,
Be our experiment's sum, thank God for guilt,
Which makes me free!
But thou, poor wife! poor mother, shall I say?
Big with the first maternity of man,
Draw'st from thy teeming womb thick fancies fond,
That with confusion mix thy delicate brain;
Fondest of which and cloudiest call the dream
(Yea, my beloved, hear me, it is a dream)
Of the serpent, and the apple, and the curse:
Fondest of dreams and cloudiest of clouds.
Well I remember, in our marriage bower,
How in the dewiest balminess of rest,
Inarmèd as we lay, sudden at once
Up from my side you started, screaming 'Guilt!'
And 'Lost! lost! lost!' I on my elbow rose,
And rubbed unwilling eyes, and cried, 'Eve! Eve!
My love! my wife!' and knit anew the embrace,
And drew thee to me close, and calmed thy fear,
And wooed thee back to sleep. In vain; for soon
I felt thee gone, and opening widest eyes,
Beheld thee kneeling on the turf, hands now
Clenched and uplifted high, now vainly outspread
