Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/86

 It begins by supposing that the universe has its course in God's thoughts—

If this be true, and thou, man, awaking to the consciousness that the world of Nature is thus caused of God, wishest to know the whole of life and thine own life in it, oh, beware. Only by pure and solitary thought thou shalt attain, if thou canst attain; and the search will sever thee from the pleasant human world into a painful solitude. The verse in which Arnold tells this is so prophetic in its excellence of his best poetry, so full of his distinctive note, that I quote it:

But if this be not true, and Nature has never known a divine birth, and thou, man, alone wakest to consciousness of a great difference between thyself and Nature—thou, the last and radiant birth of earth's obscure working—oh, beware of pride. Think that thou too only