English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 697. Where Lies the Land? |
| | | Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) |
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| 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. | |
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| On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face | 5 |
| Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace; | |
| Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below | |
| The foaming wake far widening as we go. | |
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| On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, | |
| How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! | 10 |
| The dripping sailor on the reeling mast | |
| Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. | |
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| 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, | 15 |
| Far, far behind, is all that they can say. | |
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