Perché Pensa? Pensando s'Invecchia

Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819 - 1861)

Original Text

Arthur Hugh Clough, The Poems and Prose Remains: with a Selection from his Letters and a Memoir, ed. Blanche Smith Clough [Clough's widow] (London : Macmillan, 1869). PR/C625p VICT. 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).

1To spend uncounted years of pain,

2Again, again, and yet again,

3In working out in heart and brain

4 The problem of our being here;

5To gather facts from far and near,

6Upon the mind to hold them clear,

7And, knowing more may yet appear,

8Unto one's latest breath to fear

9The premature result to draw--

10Is this the object, end and law,

11 And purpose of our being here?

Notes

1] The poem did not appear in the 1862 volume; the text given here is from The Poems and Prose Remains, 1869. The Italian title, added in 1869, may be translated: "Why do you think? Thinking makes one old." Back to Line

Publication Start Year

1853

Publication Notes

Published in Putnam's Magazine. AP 2 C4 ROBA

RPO poem Editors

Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims

RPO Edition

3RP 3.196.

Rhyme

aaabbbbbccb