The Bothie Of Tober-na-vuolich - Vii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CD EFGHCIDJKLMBDJJDNACJ DODHDIIPIGIQKJDRIJNH SKTDJDDUFSDJNKDCDDDK KVKAITJJJKEDIDPKBCII DSDIDDGDTSWCSSDNKCJC CDD CTACSKDDCJDPIITNAKTD JDKDDVTDJDJTIJSDDIAS TITDDTCIKCCIDCHKKDGT I CSTDBTIKIIDLDJISDJLD STA Long Vacation Pastoral | A |
- | |
- | |
VII | B |
- | |
Vesper adest juvenes consurgite Vesper Olympo | C |
Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit | D |
- | |
For she confessed as they sat in the dusk and he saw not her blushes | E |
Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him | F |
When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie | G |
Then after that at the dance yet again at a dance in Rannoch | H |
And she was silent confused Confused much rather Philip | C |
Buried his face in his hands his face that with blood was bursting | I |
Silent confused yet by pity she conquered her fear and continued | D |
Katie is good and not silly be comforted Sir about her | J |
Katie is good and not silly tender but not like many | K |
Carrying off and at once for fear of being seen in the bosom | L |
Locking up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any man gives them | M |
Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of | B |
That is the way I think Sir in England more than in Scotland | D |
No she lives and takes pleasure in all as in beautiful weather | J |
Sorry to lose it but just as we would be to lose fine weather | J |
And she is strong to return to herself and feel undeserted | D |
Oh she is strong and not silly she thinks no further about you | N |
She has had kerchiefs before from gentle I know as from simple | A |
Yes she is good and not silly yet were you wrong Mr Philip | C |
Wrong for yourself perhaps more than for her | J |
But Philip replied not | D |
Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees | O |
And Elspie continued | D |
That was what gave me much pain when I met you that dance at Rannoch | H |
Dancing myself too with you while Katie danced with Donald | D |
That was what gave me such pain I thought it all a mistaking | I |
All a mere chance you know and accident not proper choosing | I |
There were at least five or six not there no that I don't say | P |
But in the country about you might just as well have been courting | I |
That was what gave me much pain and you won't remember that though | G |
Three days after I met you beside my uncle's walking | I |
And I was wondering much and hoped you wouldn't notice | Q |
So as I passed I couldn't help looking You didn't know me | K |
But I was glad when I heard next day you were gone to the teacher | J |
And uplifting his face at last with eyes dilated | D |
Large as great stars in mist and dim with dabbled lashes | R |
Philip with new tears starting | I |
You think I do not remember | J |
Said suppose that I did not observe Ah me shall I tell you | N |
Elspie it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch | H |
It was your glance that descending an instant revelation | S |
Showed me where I was and whitherward going recalled me | K |
Sent me not to my books but to wrestlings of thought in the mountains | T |
Yes I have carried your glance within me undimmed unaltered | D |
As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has lent her | J |
Many a weary mile on road and hill and moorland | D |
And you suppose that I do not remember I had not observed it | D |
O did the sailor bewildered observe when they told him his bearings | U |
O did he cast overboard when they parted the compass they gave him | F |
And he continued more firmly although with stronger emotion | S |
Elspie why should I speak it you cannot believe it and should not | D |
Why should I say that I love which I all but said to another | J |
Yet should I dare should I say O Elspie you only I love you | N |
First and sole in my life that has been and surely that shall be | K |
Could O could you believe it O Elspie believe it and spurn not | D |
Is it possible possible Elspie | C |
Well she answered | D |
And she was silent some time and blushed all over and answered | D |
Quietly after her fashion still knitting Maybe I think of it | D |
Though I don't know that I did and she paused again but it may be | K |
Yes I don't know Mr Philip but only it feels to me strangely | K |
Like to the high new bridge they used to build at below there | V |
Over the burn and glen on the road You won't understand me | K |
But I keep saying in my mind this long time slowly with trouble | A |
I have been building myself up up and toilfully raising | I |
Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself without masons | T |
Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on another | J |
All one side I mean and now I see on the other | J |
Just such another fabric uprising better and stronger | J |
Close to me coming to join me and then I sometimes fancy | K |
Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges | E |
Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down and | D |
Dropping the great key stone in the middle there in my dreaming | I |
There I felt the great key stone coming in and through it | D |
Feel the other part all the other stones of the archway | P |
Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness But dear me | K |
This is confusion and nonsense I mix all the things I can think of | B |
And you won't understand Mr Philip | C |
But while she was speaking | I |
So it happened a moment she paused from her work and pondering | I |
Laid her hand on her lap Philip took it she did not resist | D |
So he retained her fingers the knitting being stopped But emotion | S |
Came all over her more and yet more from his hand from her heart and | D |
Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing | I |
So he retained her hand and his tears down dropping on it | D |
Trembling a long time kissed it at last And she ended | D |
And as she ended uprose he saying What have I heard Oh | G |
What have I done that such words should be said to me Oh I see it | D |
See the great key stone coming down from the heaven of heavens | T |
And he fell at her feet and buried his face in her apron | S |
But as under the moon and stars they went to the cottage | W |
Elspie sighed and said Be patient dear Mr Philip | C |
Do not do anything hasty It is all so soon so sudden | S |
Do not say anything yet to any one | S |
Elspie he answered | D |
Does not my friend go on Friday I then shall see nothing of you | N |
Do not I go myself on Monday | K |
But oh he said Elspie | C |
Do as I bid you my child do not go on calling me Mr | J |
Might I not just as well be calling you Miss Elspie | C |
Call me this heavenly night for once for the first time Philip | C |
Philip she said and laughed and said she could not say it | D |
Philip she said he turned and kissed the sweet lips as they said it | D |
- | |
But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way of Philip | C |
And at the evening seat when he took her hand by the alders | T |
Drew it back saying almost peevishly | A |
No Mr Philip | C |
I was quite right last night it is too soon too sudden | S |
What I told you before was foolish perhaps was hasty | K |
When I think it over I am shocked and terrified at it | D |
Not that at all I unsay it that is I know I said it | D |
And when I said it felt it But oh we must wait Mr Philip | C |
We mustn't pull ourselves at the great key stone of the centre | J |
Some one else up above must hold it fit it and fix it | D |
If we try ourselves we shall only damage the archway | P |
Damage all our own work that we wrought our painful upbuilding | I |
When you remember you took my hand last evening talking | I |
I was all over a tremble and as you pressed the fingers | T |
After and afterwards kissed it I could not speak And then too | N |
As we went home you kissed me for saying your name It was dreadful | A |
I have been kissed before she added blushing slightly | K |
I have been kissed more than once by Donald my cousin and others | T |
It is the way of the lads and I make up my mind not to mind it | D |
But Mr Philip last night and from you it was different quite Sir | J |
When I think of all that I am shocked and terrified at it | D |
Yes it is dreadful to me | K |
She paused but quickly continued | D |
Smiling almost fiercely continued looking upward | D |
You are too strong you see Mr Philip just like the sea there | V |
Which will come through the straits and all between the mountains | T |
Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and inlet | D |
Getting far in up the quiet stream of sweet inland water | J |
Sucking it up and stopping it turning it driving it backward | D |
Quite preventing its own quiet running and then soon after | J |
Back it goes off leaving weeds on the shore and wrack and uncleanness | T |
And the poor burn in the glen tries again its peaceful running | I |
But it is brackish and tainted and all its banks in disorder | J |
That was what I dreamt all last night I was the burnie | S |
Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine and could not | D |
I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the great salt tide that | D |
Would mix in itself with me and change me I felt myself changing | I |
And I struggled and screamed I believe in my dream It was dreadful | A |
You are too strong Mr Philip I am but a poor slender burnie | S |
Used to the glens and the rocks the rowan and birch of the woodies | T |
Quite unused to the great salt sea quite afraid and unwilling | I |
Ere she had spoken two words had Philip released her fingers | T |
As she went on he recoiled fell back and shook and shivered | D |
There he stood looking pale and ghastly when she had ended | D |
Answering in hollow voice | T |
It is true oh quite true Elspie | C |
Oh you are always right oh what what have I been doing | I |
I will depart to morrow But oh forget me not wholly | K |
Wholly Elspie nor hate me no do not hate me my Elspie | C |
But a revulsion passed through the brain and bosom of Elspie | C |
And she got up from her seat on the rock putting by her knitting | I |
Went to him where he stood and answered | D |
No Mr Philip | C |
No you are good Mr Philip and gentle and I am the foolish | H |
No Mr Philip forgive me | K |
She stepped right to him and boldly | K |
Took up his hand and placed it in hers he dared no movement | D |
Took up the cold hanging hand up forcing the heavy elbow | G |
I am afraid she said but I will and kissed the fingers | T |
And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past counting | I |
- | |
But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie | C |
And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean | S |
Urging in high spring tide its masterful way through the mountains | T |
Forcing and flooding the silvery stream as it runs from the inland | D |
That great power withdrawn receding here and passive | B |
Felt she in myriad springs her sources far in the mountains | T |
Stirring collecting rising upheaving forth outflowing | I |
Taking and joining right welcome that delicate rill in the valley | K |
Filling it making it strong and still descending seeking | I |
With a blind forefeeling descending ever and seeking | I |
With a delicious forefeeling the great still sea before it | D |
There deep into it far to carry and lose in its bosom | L |
Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added | D |
As he was kissing her fingers and knelt on the ground before her | J |
Yielding backward she sank to her seat and of what she was doing | I |
Ignorant bewildered in sweet multitudinous vague emotion | S |
Stooping knowing not what put her lips to the hair on his forehead | D |
And Philip raising himself gently for the first time round her | J |
Passing his arms close close enfolded her close to his bosom | L |
As they went home by the moon Forgive me Philip she whispered | D |
I have so many things to think of all of a sudden | S |
I who had never once thought a thing in my ignorant Highlands | T |
Arthur Hugh Clough
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Bothie Of Tober-na-vuolich - Vii poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Best Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough