Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)

Extracts from The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich: Elspie and Philip

BUT a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie;

And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean,

Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the mountains,

Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the inland;

That great power withdrawn, receding here and passive,

Felt she in myriad springs, her sources far in the mountains,

Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-outflowing,

Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley,

Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking,

With a blind forefeeling descending ever, and seeking,

With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it;

There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom,

Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added.

As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her,

Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing

Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion,

Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the hair on his forehead:

And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time round her

Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom.

As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she whispered;

I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden;

I who had never once thought a thing,—in my ignorant Highlands.