University of Virginia Library

previous section The poems and prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough
next section

Scene III.

—Dipsychus in his own house, alone.
Di.
She will come yet, I think, although she said
She would go hence and die; I cannot tell.
Should I have made the nation's business wait,
That I might listen to an old sad tale
Uselessly iterated? Ah—ah me!
I am grown weak indeed; those old black thoughts
No more as servants at my bidding go,
But as stern tyrants look me in the face,
And mock my reason's inefficient hand
That sways to wave them hence.

Serv.
You rung, my lord?

Di.
Come here, my friend. The woman,
A beggar-woman, whom six weeks ago,
As you remember, you admitted to me,
You may admit again if she returns.
[Exit Servant.
Will she return? or did she die? I searched
Newspaper columns through to find a trace
Of some poor corpse discovered in the Thames,
Weltering in filth or stranded on the shoals.
‘You called me Pleasure once, I now am Guilt.’
Is that her voice?—
‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt—and after this
Guilt evermore.’ I hear her voice again.
‘Once Guilt, but now’—I know not what it says;—
Some word in some strange language, that my ears
Have never heard, yet seem to long to know.
‘Once Pleasure and now Guilt, and after this’—
What does she say?—[OMITTED]

previous section The poems and prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough
next section