The poems and prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough With a selection from his letters and a memoir: Edited by his wife: In two volumes: With a portrait |
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 | The poems and prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough |  |
Scene VIII.
In the Piazza.Di.
Not for thy service, thou imperious fiend!
Not to do thy work, or the like of thine;
Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit!
But One Most High, Most True, whom without thee
It seems I cannot.
Not to do thy work, or the like of thine;
Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit!
But One Most High, Most True, whom without thee
It seems I cannot.
O the misery
That one must truck and pactise with the world
To gain the 'vantage-ground to assail it from;
To set upon the Giant one must first,
O perfidy! have eat the Giant's bread.
If I submit, it is but to gain time
And arms and stature: 'tis but to lie safe
Until the hour strike to arise and slay;
'Tis the old story of the adder's brood
Feeding and nestling till the fangs be grown.
Were it not nobler done, then, to act fair,
To accept the service with the wages, do
Frankly the devil's work for the devil's pay?
O, but another my allegiance holds
Inalienably his. How much soe'er
I might submit, it must be to rebel.
Submit then sullenly, that's no dishonour.
Yet I could deem it better too to starve
And die untraitored. O, who sent me, though?
Sent me, and to do something—O hard master!—
To do a treachery. But indeed 'tis done;
I have already taken of the pay
And curst the payer; take I must, curse too.
Alas! the little strength that I possess
Derives, I think, of him. So still it is,
The timid child that clung unto her skirts,
A boy, will slight his mother, and, grown a man,
His father too. There's Scripture too for that!
Do we owe fathers nothing—mothers nought?
Is filial duty folly? Yet He says,
‘He that loves father, mother, more than me;’
Yea, and ‘the man his parents shall desert,’
The Ordinance says, ‘and cleave unto his wife.’
O man, behold thy wife, the hard naked world;
Adam, accept thy Eve.
That one must truck and pactise with the world
To gain the 'vantage-ground to assail it from;
To set upon the Giant one must first,
O perfidy! have eat the Giant's bread.
If I submit, it is but to gain time
And arms and stature: 'tis but to lie safe
Until the hour strike to arise and slay;
'Tis the old story of the adder's brood
Feeding and nestling till the fangs be grown.
Were it not nobler done, then, to act fair,
To accept the service with the wages, do
Frankly the devil's work for the devil's pay?
O, but another my allegiance holds
Inalienably his. How much soe'er
I might submit, it must be to rebel.
Submit then sullenly, that's no dishonour.
Yet I could deem it better too to starve
And die untraitored. O, who sent me, though?
Sent me, and to do something—O hard master!—
166
I have already taken of the pay
And curst the payer; take I must, curse too.
Alas! the little strength that I possess
Derives, I think, of him. So still it is,
The timid child that clung unto her skirts,
A boy, will slight his mother, and, grown a man,
His father too. There's Scripture too for that!
Do we owe fathers nothing—mothers nought?
Is filial duty folly? Yet He says,
‘He that loves father, mother, more than me;’
Yea, and ‘the man his parents shall desert,’
The Ordinance says, ‘and cleave unto his wife.’
O man, behold thy wife, the hard naked world;
Adam, accept thy Eve.
So still it is,
The tree exhausts the soil; creepers kill it,
Their insects them: the lever finds its fulcrum
On what it then o'erthrows; the homely spade
In labour's hand unscrupulously seeks
Its first momentum on the very clod
Which next will be upturned. It seems a law.
And am not I, though I but ill recall
My happier age, a kidnapped child of heaven,
Whom these uncircumcised Philistines
Have by foul play shorn, blinded, maimed, and kept
For what more glorious than to make them sport?
Wait, then, wait, O my soul! grow, grow, ye locks!
Then perish they, and if need is, I too.
The tree exhausts the soil; creepers kill it,
Their insects them: the lever finds its fulcrum
On what it then o'erthrows; the homely spade
In labour's hand unscrupulously seeks
Its first momentum on the very clod
Which next will be upturned. It seems a law.
And am not I, though I but ill recall
My happier age, a kidnapped child of heaven,
Whom these uncircumcised Philistines
Have by foul play shorn, blinded, maimed, and kept
For what more glorious than to make them sport?
Wait, then, wait, O my soul! grow, grow, ye locks!
Then perish they, and if need is, I too.
Sp.
(aside).
A truly admirable proceeding!
Could there be finer special pleading
When scruples would be interceding?
There's no occasion I should stay;
167
The sum I set him; and this day
Will bring it, neither less nor bigger,
Exact to my predestined figure.
| The poems and prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough | |