Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Thomas Edward Brown (1830–1897)

Clifton

I’M here at Clifton, grinding at the mill

My feet for thrice nine barren years have trod;

But there are rocks and waves at Scarlett still,

And gorse runs riot in Glen Chass—thank God!

Alert, I seek exactitude of rule,

I step, and square my shoulders with the squad;

But there are blaeberries on old Barrule,

And Langness has its heather still—thank God!

There is no silence here: the truculent quack

Insists with acrid shriek my ears to prod,

And, if I stop them, fumes; but there ’s no lack

Of silence still on Carraghyn—thank God!

Pragmatic fibs surround my soul, and bate it

With measured phrase, that asks the assenting nod;

I rise, and say the bitter thing, and hate it—

But Wordsworth’s castle ’s still at Peel—thank God!

O broken life! O wretched bits of being,

Unrhythmic, patched, the even and the odd!

But Bradda still has lichens worth the seeing,

And thunder in her caves—thank God! thank God!