Where Lies the Land to Which the Ship Would Go

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights while wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

Arthur Hugh Clough
(1819-1861)
Among Victorian readers, Arthur Hugh Clough was best known for his earlier, short poems. His most famous was "Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth", which he wrote in support of the fighters in the revolutions of 1848.
For later Victorians and for twentieth-century readers, however, his most important works have been the products of his struggle with his religious doubts - indeed he is for many the representative Victorian Doubter.

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