Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/150

 of the sonnets of that time, to look out beyond himself over the world of man. The close of Dover Beach marks how despairing and pitiful was sometimes that outlook. The world, he says,

Then, in another mood, hope for the world emerges at the close of that noble and frowning poem, A Summer Night. And then, changing again, he can stand apart, and give advice to the confused and toiling world. The New Age bids men keep reverence for the past, and Progress bids them keep religion. Guard the fire within, lest the heart of humanity perish of cold. The Future, a poem as full of imagination as of thought, paints first all that man has lost of the insight, the freshness, the calm, the vigour of life which filled the past; and then, the hoarse roar of the present, the huge cities, the black confusion of trade, the peacelessness. What was before man neglects, of what shall succeed he has no knowledge. But haply, the river of Time, as it grows, may gain, not the earlier calm, but a solemn quiet of its own; and as it draws to the Ocean, may, at last, allure peace to the soul of man out of the infinite sea into which it flows.

This is a higher, a more hopeful strain; and it is continued and strengthened in the Elegiac Poems. I