Life is Struggle
By Arthur Hugh Clough
To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain,
And give oneself a world of pain;
Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot,
Imperious, supple God knows what,
For whats all one to have or not;
O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!
For tis not joy, it is not gain,
It is not in itself a bliss,
Only it is precisely this
That keeps us all alive.
To say we truly feel the pain,
And quite are sinking with the strain;
Entirely, simply, undeceived,
Believe, and say we neer believed
The object, een were it achieved,
A thing we eer had cared to keep;
With heart and soul to hold it cheap,
And then to go and try it again;
O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!
O, tis not joy, and tis not bliss,
Only it is precisely this
That keeps us still alive.