Ah! Yet Consider it Again!

Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819 - 1861)

Original Text

Arthur Hugh Clough, Poems, with a Memoir (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862). PR 4455 A2 1862 ROBA TRIN. The standard recent edition of Clough's poetry is The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, edited by H. F. Lowry, A. L. P. Norrington and F. L. Mulhauser (Oxford, 1951).

1"Old things need not be therefore true,"

2O brother men, nor yet the new;

3Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,

4And yet consider it again!

5The souls of now two thousand years

6Have laid up here their toils and tears,

7And all the earnings of their pain,--

8Ah, yet consider it again!

9We! what do we see? each a space

10Of some few yards before his face;

11Does that the whole wide plan explain?

12Ah, yet consider it again!

13Alas! the great world goes its way,

14And takes its truth from each new day;

15They do not quit, nor can retain,

16Far less consider it again.

Notes

1] The title was added in 1869. Back to Line

6] here: in the Christian religion. Back to Line

Publication Start Year

1862

RPO poem Editors

Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims

RPO Edition

3RP 3.196.

Rhyme

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