Arthur Hugh Clough

... In a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey, Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows, Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes

... O musical chaff of old Athens, Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian black-guard!

Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather.

... High-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them, Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them, Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub!

The grave man, nicknamed Adam.

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried.

Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.

Dance on, dance on, we see, we see Youth goes, alack, and with it glee, A boy the old man ne’er can be; Maternal thirty scarce can find The sweet sixteen long left behind.

’Tis possible, young sir, that some excess Mars youthful judgment and old men’s no less; Yet we must take our counsel as we may For (flying years this lesson still convey), ’Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise, And not to use, but still …

My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o’er My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor;

O tell me, friends, while yet we part, And heart can yet be heard of heart, O tell me then, for what is it Our early plan of life we quit; From all our old intentions range, And why does all so wholly change?

Each for himself is still the rule We learn it when we go to school— The devil take the hindmost, O!

Our ills are worse than at their ease These blameless happy souls suspect, They only study the disease, Alas, who live not to detect.

Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, East wind and frost are safely gone; With zephyr mild and balmy rain The summer comes serenely on; Earth, air, and sun and skies combine To promise all that’s kind and fair:—

I watched them from the window, thy children at their play, And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away, And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child’s own buoyant gladness Came gushing back again to me with …

Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition.

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat.

Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it.

Honour thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall: Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive Officiously to keep alive.

No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency.

Thou shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two?

“There is no God,” the wicked saith, “And truly it’s a blessing, For what He might have done with us It’s better only guessing.”

That out of sight is out of mind Is true of most we leave behind.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.