Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough

It was but some few nights ago

I wandered down this quiet lane;

I pray that I may never know

The feelings then I felt, again.

The leaves were shining all about,

You might almost have seen them springing;

I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout,

And all the little birds were singing.

It was not dull, the air was clear,

All lovely sights and sounds to deal,

My eyes could see, my ears could hear,

Only my heart, it would not feel;

And yet that it should not be so,

My mind kept telling me within;

Though nought was wrong that I did know,

I thought I must have done some sin.

For I am sure as I can be,

That they who have been wont to look

On all in Nature’s face they see,

Even as in the Holy Book;

They who with pure and humble eyes

Have gazed and read her lessons high,

And taught their spirits to be wise

In love and human sympathy,—

That they can soon and surely tell

When aught has gone amiss within,

When the mind is not sound and well,

Nor the soul free from taint of sin.

For as God’s Spirit from above,

So Beauty is to them below,

And when they slight that holy love,

Their hearts that presence may not know.

So I turned home the way I came,

With downcast looks and heavy heart,

A guilty thing and full of shame,

With a dull grief that had no smart.