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The misprint was not corrected until long after more than a week, I think. Then, I might have passed a little for a prophetess as well as George Sand! Only, to confess a truth, the same poem would have proved how fairly I was taken in by our Tuscan Grand Duke. Oh, the traitor! I saw the 'Ambarvalia' reviewed somewhere I fancy in the 'Spectator and was not much struck by the extracts.
But of far the greatest interest is the moveable feast of the Ambarvalia, the great lustration of the fields, which took place towards the end of the month: the date of its occurrence was no doubt fixed according to the state of the crops in any given year.
They had their Bacchanalia; and we have our Wakes, answering to them: They their Saturnalia, and we our Carnevalls, and Shrove-tuesdays liberty of Servants: They their Procession of Priapus; wee our fetching in, erection, and dancing about May-poles; and Dancing is one kind of Worship: They had their Procession called Ambarvalia; and we our Procession about the fields in the Rogation Week.
"Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely ere Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; The fruit of dreamy hoping Is, waking, blank despair." CLOUGH, Ambarvalia. The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama, for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end.
These, with a few other fugitive pieces, were printed, in company with verses by a friend, as one part of a small volume entitled, "Ambarvalia," which never attained any general circulation, although containing some poems which will take their place among the best of English poetry of this generation.
It is not necessary to be biassed by Matthew Arnold's musical epicede of "Thyrsis" in order to admit, nor should any bias against his theological views and his rather restless character be sufficient to induce any one to deny, a distinct vein of poetry in Clough. Ambarvalia had preceded the Bothie, and other things followed.
This was a very old priesthood consisting of twelve men who took part in the purification of the land, the Ambarvalia, so called because the ceremony consisted of a solemn procession around the boundaries of the fields.
The little volume of miscellaneous poems, called Ambarvalia, and the "Bothie of Tober-na-Vuo-lich" were sent out to New Zealand by Clough, at the same moment that Matt was sending his brother the Poems by A. Clough writes from Liverpool in February, 1849 having just received Matt's volume: At last our own Matt's book! Read mine first, my child, if our volumes go forth together.
In Virgil's account the prayer is made to Ceres, and we know that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia became very closely connected with the worship of the imperial house, the centre of the cult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the earliest account of the rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars is addressed in the unmistakeable character of an agricultural deity.
Otherwise you won't read mine Ambarvalia, at any rate at all. Quo usque? But when the books arrive, my father writes to his sister with affectionate welcome indeed of the Poems by A, but with enthusiasm of the "Bothie." It greatly surpasses my expectations! It is on the whole a noble poem, well held together, clear, full of purpose, and full of promise.
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