Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/161

 the years between 1842 and '50. Later on, his description of that dim grim battle in the West where Arthur died, himself in doubt, and where friend and foe were shadows in the mist,

was his record of this time, and all it meant for those who, in its war, still held to their standards. Nor indeed, when he wrote the Passing of Arthur, was his own soul freed from the agony of the battle. Nevertheless, he did not give way. Like St. Paul, "cast down but not destroyed," there were certain heights of faith and thought in his secret soul to which, undismayed, and unheeding of the confused strife, he retired when he pleased. But the others—down in the heat of the contest, on the burning sand—we have seen in what a condition they were in the poetry of Clough and Arnold. Misery and restlessness; changing and divided thoughts; doubts and longing for peace and calm; nothing left but duty; faith retired to her interlunar cave; the noise and confusion of the battle driving men distracted who cared for the ancient ideals; even among those who had no poetic instincts a certain vague distress; beauty gone, ugliness and tumult filling the world of thought. And in common life, materialism growing; conventions and maxims again tyrannising over society; art, creation, imagination, and truth