Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/43

 So when, as will be by-and-by, The stream is waterless and dry, This halo and its hues will die; And though the soul contented rest With those substantial blessings blest, Will not a longing, half confest, Betray that this is not the love, The gift for which all gifts above Him praise we, Who is Love, the Giver?

I cannot say the things are good Bread is it, if not angels’ food; But Love? Alas! I cannot say; A glory on the vision lay; A light of more than mortal day About it played, upon it rested; It did not, faltering and weak, Beg Reason on its side to speak Itself was Reason, or, if not, Such substitute as is, I wot, Of seraph-kind the loftier lot;— Itself was of itself attested;— To processes that, hard and dry, Elaborate truth from fallacy, With modes intuitive succeeding, Including those and superseding; Reason sublimed and Love most high It was, a life that cannot die, A dream of glory most exceeding.