Читать книгу Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough - Arthur Hugh Clough - Страница 39

Cain. Am I or am I not this which they think me?

My mother loves me not; my brother Abel,

Searing my heart, commends my soul to God;

My father does not shun me—there’s my comfort:

Almost I think they look askance on him.

Ah, but for him,

I know not what might happen; for at times

Ungovernable angers take the waves

Of my deep soul and sweep them—who knows whither?

And a strange impulse, struggling to the truth,

Urges me onward to put forth my strength,

No matter how. A wild anxiety

Possesses me moreover to essay

This world of action round me so unknown;

And to be able to do this or that

Seems cause enough without a cause for doing it,

My father, he is cheerful and content,

And leads me frankly forward. Yet, indeed,

His leading—or, more truly, to be led

At all, by any one, and not myself—

Is mere dissatisfaction: evermore

Something I must do individual,

To vindicate my nature, to give proof

I also am, as Adam is, a man.