Duty
By Arthur Hugh Clough
Duty thats to say, complying,
With whateers expected here;
On your unknown cousins dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear;
Claims of kith and kin connection,
Claims of manners honour still,
Ready money of affection
Pay, whoever drew the bill.
With the form conforming duly,
Senseless what it meaneth truly,
Go to church the world require you,
To balls the world require you too,
And marry papa and mamma desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.
Duty tis to take on trust
What things are good, and right, and just;
And whether indeed they be or be not,
Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
By leading, opening neer your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.
Tis the stern and prompt suppressing,
As an obvious deadly sin,
All the questing and the guessing
Of the souls own soul within:
Tis the coward acquiescence
In a destinys behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all thats truest, noblest, best:
Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroyed.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by dutys prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!