Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/325

Rh the movement toward some new dawn of knowledge-brightened faith.

A few verses from his "Dover Beach" are in the key of several of his most touching lyrics,—in The troubled heart. the varying measure so peculiarly his own,—utterances of a feeling which in the end seems to have led him to forego his career as a poet: "The sea of faith," he plains,—

Doubtless Arnold's reserve intensified this sadness. Clough equally felt the perturbed spirit of his time; but he had a refuge in a bracing zest for life and nature, which so often made the world seem good to him, and not designed for naught.

In time our poets will acquire, with the new learning and the more humane and critical The new day. theology, the health and optimism in which a