"What though the music of thy rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat,--
It failed, and thou wast mute!
Yet hadst thou always visions of our light."
Yes, always visions of the light! But Arnold's usual felicity of
discrimination is lacking in this last stanza. The stormy note is not
the characteristic note of Clough's mature song, nor does his art betray
the overtasked pipe. His pipe indeed is not attuned, as was Arnold's
own, to the soft melancholy of regret at leaving behind the happy fields
of the past in the quest for the light that shines beyond and across the
untraveled and dim waste before them; its tone was less pathetic, but
not less clear. The music of each is the song of travelers whose road is
difficult, whose goal is uncertain. Their only guide is the fugitive
light, now faint, now distinct, which allures them with irresistible
compulsion. Their pathways at times diverge; but when most divergent,
the notes of their accordant pipes are heard in the same direction.
The memory of Clough remains, with those who had the happiness of
knowing him in life, distinct and precious. It is that of one of the
highest and purest souls. Sensitive, simple, tender, manly, his figure
stands as one of the ideal figures of the past, the image of the true
poet, the true friend, the true man. He died too young for his full
fame, but not too young for the love which is better than fame.
[Signature: Charles Eliot Norton]