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the Ship Would Go? A Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) A Study Guide Study Guide Written by Michael J. Cummings...© 2009 ......."Where Lies the Land to Which the Ship Would Go?" is a lyric poem of sixteen lines in four quatrains (four-line stanzas). The author completed the poem in 1852. It was first published in 1862. .......Arthur Hugh Clough (pronounced KLUFF) was born in Liverpool, England, in 1819, where his father was in the cotton trade. When Arthur was only three, his family moved to the United States, settling in Charleston, S.C. In 1828, when he was nine, Clough returned to England to complete his education. He later traveled to France and Italy, then back to America, then back to England. He also visited Greece and Turkey. He apparently derived inspiration for "Where Lies the Land to Which the Ship Would Go?" from his sea voyages and from an 1806 poem by William Wordsworth. The first line of Wordsworth's poem is "Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?" Clough died in Italy in 1861 after contracting malaria. British scholar and poet Samuel Waddington wrote that " 'sincerity and sense,' [with] a rare Homeric simplicity of genius, are the characteristic features of Clough's poetry" (Arthur Hugh Clough: a Monograph. London: George Bell and Sons, 1883, page viii).
On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, Where lies the land to which the ship would go? The Joy of the Journey .......This poem presents a familiar theme: traveling is an end in itself. A little child knows this truth better than anyone else. When he climbs into a car, rolls down the window, and allows the breeze to blow into his face as the sights pass by, he does not care about where he is going. The fun is in the journey. Robert Louis Stevenson expressed this idea when he wrote, “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” Living for the Moment .......If one takes the poem as a metaphor for life—birth being the beginning of the journey and death the end—then it becomes an apologia for carpe diem (Latin, seize the day). Live life to the fullest while it lasts, the poem says. Put another way, it says, as British poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) did, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old time is still a-flying.” .......Clough presents the poem in iambic pentameter. In this metric scheme each line has five pairs of syllables; the first syllable in a pair is unstressed and the second stressed. Here is the metric pattern, as demonstrated in the first stanza: .........1..................2..................3.................4................5 .......1...............2...........3..............4..................5 .........1..................2..................3..................4.................5 .......1..............2.............3...............4.................5 .......In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the second, and the third line rhymes with the fourth. Thus, the rhyme scheme is aabb. Rhyming pairs of lines in iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets. Note that all the end rhymes consist of single syllables. Such an arrangement is known as masculine rhyme.
When two syllables rhyme at the end of a line, the arrangement is called feminine rhyme. Here are examples to help you understand the difference between these two types of rhyme: Masculine Rhyme
Feminine Rhyme
ring, fling
ringing, flinging
away, today
May day, heyday
.......Alliteration occurs throughout the poem to help impart euphony and a sense of rhythm. Following are examples of alliteration in the first stanza. Where lies the land to which the ship would go?  Study Questions and Writing Topics 1. Write a poem containing heroic couplets. (See Rhyme, above.) The topic is open.
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