Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Arthur Hugh Clough

To spend uncounted years of pain,
Again, again, and yet again,
In working out in heart and brain
     The problem of our being here;
To gather facts from far and near,
Upon the mind to hold them clear,
And, knowing more may yet appear,
Unto one’s latest breath to fear
The premature result to draw—
Is this the object, end and law,
     And purpose of our being here?

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems, with a Memoir | Macmillan, 1862

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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