dots-menu
×

Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  “Old things need not be therefore true”

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)

“Old things need not be therefore true”

 
“OLD things need not be therefore true,”
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,
And yet consider it again.
 
The souls of now two thousand years        5
Have laid up here their toils and fears,
And all the earnings of their pain,—
Ah, yet consider it again!
 
We! what do we see? each a space
Of some few yards before his face;        10
Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!