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: Philip to Adam

THESE are fragments again without date addressed to Adam.

As at return of tide the total weight of ocean,

Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland,

Sets-in amain, in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarba,

Heaving, swelling, spreading, the might of the mighty Atlantic.

There into cranny and slit of the rocky, cavernous bottom

Settles down, and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surface

Eddies, coils, and whirls; by dangerous Corryvreckan:

So in my soul of souls, through its cells and secret recesses,

Comes back, swelling and spreading, the old democratic fervour.

But as the light of day enters some populous city,

Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day-streak signal,

High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out the gaslamps—

All the great empty streets are flooded with broadening clearness

Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous access

Permeates far and pierces to the very cellars lying in

Narrow high back-lane, and court, and alley of alleys:—

He that goes forth to his walks, while speeding to the suburb,

Sees sights only peaceful and pure; as labourers settling

Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of slumber;

Humble market-carts, coming in, bringing in, not only

Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country

Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers; soon after

Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters

Up at the windows, or down, letting in the air by the doorway;

School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, satchel,

Hampered as they haste, those running, these others maidenly tripping;

Early clerk anon turning out to stroll, or it may be

Meet his sweetheart—waiting behind the garden gate there;

Merchant on his grass-plat haply bare-headed; and now by this time

Little child bringing breakfast to ‘father’ that sits on the timber

There by the scaffolding; see, she waits for the can beside him;

Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit fires:

So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric—

All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway out-works—

Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and Beauty:—

—Such—in me, and to me, and on me the love of Elspie!