Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/24

 This hot still noon of August brings the sight; This quelling silence as of eve or night, Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may After her travail's latest bitterest throes) Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose, One half in effort, straining, suffering still.

back again, my olden heart!— Ah, fickle spirit and untrue, I bade the only guide depart Whose faithfulness I surely knew: I said, my heart is all too soft; He who would climb and soar aloft Must needs keep ever at his side The tonic of a wholesome pride.

Come back again, my olden heart!— Alas, I called not then for thee; I called for Courage, and apart From Pride if Courage could not be, Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find In thee a power to lift the mind This low and grovelling joy above— 'Tis but the proud can truly love.

Come back again, my olden heart!— With incrustations of the years Uncased as yet,—as then thou wert, Full-filled with shame and coward fears: Wherewith amidst a jostling throng Of deeds, that each and all were wrong, The doubting soul, from day to day, Uneasy paralytic lay.