And what the words, that with his failing breath
Did England hear her aged soldier say?
I know not. Yielding tranquilly to death,
With no proud speech, no boast, he passed away.
Not stirring words, nor gallant deeds alone,
Plain patient work fulfilled that length of life;
Duty, not glory—Service, not a throne,
Inspired his effort, set for him the strife.
Therefore just Fortune, with one hasty blow,
Spurning her minion, Glory’s, Victory’s lord,
Gave all to him that was content to know,
In service done its own supreme reward.
The words he said, if haply words there were,
When full of years and works he passed away,
Most naturally might, methinks, refer
To some poor humble business of to-day.
‘That humble simple duty of the day
Perform,’ he bids; ‘ask not if small or great:
Serve in thy post; be faithful, and obey;
Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the State.’
1852

PESCHIERA.

What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost?
‘’Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
The tricolor—a trampled rag
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track
By sentry boxes yellow-black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.
I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
The eagle with his black wings flouts
The breath and beauty of your land.
Yet not in vain, although in vain,
O men of Brescia, on the day
Of loss past hope, I heard you say
Your welcome to the noble pain.
You say, ‘Since so it is,—good-bye
Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er
May be, or must, no tongue shall dare
To tell, “The Lombard feared to die!”’
You said (there shall be answer fit),
‘And if our children must obey,
They must; but thinking on this day
’Twill less debase them to submit.’
You said (Oh not in vain you said),
‘Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may;
The hours ebb fast of this one day
When blood may yet be nobly shed.’
Ah! not for idle hatred, not
For honour, fame, nor self-applause,
But for the glory of the cause,
You did, what will not be forgot.
And though the stranger stand, ’tis true,
By force and fortune’s right he stands;
By fortune, which is in God’s hands,
And strength, which yet shall spring in you.
This voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,
‘’Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
1849

ALTERAM PARTEM.

Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought,
Since Prudence hath her martyrs too,
And Wisdom dictates not to do,
Till doing shall be not for nought?
Not ours to give or lose is life;
Will Nature, when her brave ones fall,
Remake her work? or songs recall
Death’s victim slain in useless strife?
That rivers flow into the sea
Is loss and waste, the foolish say,
Nor know that back they find their way,
Unseen, to where they wont to be.
Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow,
The river runneth still at hand,
Brave men are born into the land,
And whence the foolish do not know.
No! no vain voice did on me fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,
‘’Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
1849

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH.

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main,
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
1849

FOOTNOTES

[1] This and the following Early Poems are reprinted from the volume called Ambarvalia.

[2] This was written for the twenty-fifth wedding-day of Mr. and Mrs. Walrond, of Calder Park.

[3] Ho Thëos meta sou—God be with you!

[4] The manuscript of this poem is very imperfect, and bears no title.

[5] The manuscript of this poem is incomplete; but it has been thought best to give all the separate fragments, since they evidently are conceived on the same plan, and throw light on each other.

[6] This poem, as well as the ‘Mari Magno,’ was not published during the author’s lifetime, and should not be regarded as having received his finishing touches.

[7] Flood.

[8] Reap.

[9] Reaping.

[10] Shocks.

[11] Public-house in the hamlet.

[12] This poem is reprinted from the volume called Ambarvalia.

[13]

Hic avidus stetit
Vulcanus, hic matrona Juno, et
Nunquam humeris positurus arcum;
Qui rore puro Castaliæ lavit
Crines solutos, qui Lyciæ tenet
Dumeta natalemque silvam,
Delius et Patareus Apollo.

[14]

——domus Albuneæ resonantis,
Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis

[15] These Sonnets have been brought together from very imperfect manuscripts. It is not to be supposed that their author would have given them to the public in their present state; but they are in parts so characteristic of his thought and style, that they will not be without interest to the readers of his poems.

[16] These Tales were written only a few months before the writer’s death, during his journeys in Greece, Italy, and the Pyrenees, and had not been revised by him.

[17] These songs were composed either during the writer’s voyage across the Atlantic in 1852, or during his residence in America.

[18] Passages of the second letter of Parepidemus (vol. i. pp. 400, 401) illustrate the theory which Mr. Clough has carried into practice in these hexameters as well as in the Translations from the Iliad.

[19] A great proportion of the Poems described as Miscellaneous have, like some included in previous divisions, been brought together from rough copies and unfinished manuscripts. Fragmentary and imperfect as they are, they yet are so characteristic of their writer, that they have been placed here along with others more finished.

[20] This thought is taken from a passage on astronomy in Plato’s Republic, in which the following sentence occurs, vii. 529, D: ‘We must use the fretwork of the sky as patterns, with a view to the study which aims at these higher realities, just as if we chanced to meet with diagrams cunningly drawn and devised by Dædalus or some other craftsman or painter.’