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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

To Spend Uncounted Years Of Pain

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
Until 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.

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