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High and Low

By Arthur Hugh Clough

Topics: classic

The grasses green of sweet content     That spring, no matter high or low,     Whereer a living thing can grow,     On chilly hills and rocky rent,     And by the lowly streamlets side     Oh! why did eer I turn from these?     The lordly, tall, umbrageous trees,     That stand in high aspiring pride,     With massive bulk on high sustain     A world of boughs with leaf and fruits,     And drive their wide-extending roots     Deep down into the subject plain.     Oh, what with these had I to do?     That germs of things above their kind     May live, pent up and close confined     In humbler forms, it may be true;     Yet great is that which gives our lot;     High laws and powers our will transcend,     And not for this, till time do end,     Shall any be what he is not.     Each in its place, as each was sent,     Just nature ranges side by side;     Alike the oak trees lofty pride     And grasses green of sweet content.

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"The grasses green of sweet content..."

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Author:Arthur Hugh Clough

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Arthur Hugh Clough

About Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) was an English poet whose work explores Victorian doubt and moral uncertainty. His poems "Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth" and "The Latest Decalogue" are sharp, thoughtful, and still widely anthologized.

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"Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith,     I was,..."

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