Arthur Hugh Clough

The Questioning Spirit

The human spirits saw I on a day,
Sitting and looking each a different way;
And hardly tasking, subtly questioning,

The questioning spirit's role

This figure isn't answering questions—he's asking them. He moves through the ring interrogating each spirit, testing their willingness to engage with uncertainty.

Another spirit went around the ring
To each and each: and as he ceased his say,
Each after each, I heard them singly sing,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not, what avails to know?

Refusal as answer

Notice the repeated structure: question + 'I know not' + permission to continue doing/dreaming/loving. The spirits aren't ignorant—they're actively choosing not to know.

Refusal as answer

Notice the repeated structure: question + 'I know not' + permission to continue doing/dreaming/loving. The spirits aren't ignorant—they're actively choosing not to know.

We know not, wherefore need we know?
This answer gave they still unto his suing,
We know not, let us do as we are doing.
Dost thou not know that these things only seem?
I know not, let me dream my dream.
Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?
I know not, let me take my pleasure.
What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought?
I know not, let me think my thought.
What is the end of strife?
I know not, let me live my life.
How many days or e’er thou mean’st to move?
I know not, let me love my love.
Were not things old once new?
I know not, let me do as others do.
And when the rest were over past,
I know not, I will do my duty, said the last.

The duty exception

The final spirit breaks the pattern by invoking duty instead of pleasure or dreams. This shift matters—duty suggests obligation, not choice, which changes the questioning spirit's follow-up.

Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,
Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;
But shalt thou then, when all is done,
Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty
Like these, that may be seen and won
In life, whose course will then be run;

Duty's emptiness

The questioning spirit doesn't attack duty itself—he asks what comes after it. The trap: if duty leaves nothing behind (no love, no beauty), what was the point? The spirit has no answer.

Or wilt thou be where there is none?
I know not, I will do my duty.

Duty's emptiness

The questioning spirit doesn't attack duty itself—he asks what comes after it. The trap: if duty leaves nothing behind (no love, no beauty), what was the point? The spirit has no answer.

And taking up the word around, above, below,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know!
We know not, sang they, what avails to know?

Silence as surrender

The questioning spirit goes quiet. He doesn't defeat the chorus—they overwhelm him into stillness. This is the poem's turning point: his method has failed.

Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space,
Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place.

Silence as surrender

The questioning spirit goes quiet. He doesn't defeat the chorus—they overwhelm him into stillness. This is the poem's turning point: his method has failed.

But as the echoing chorus died away
And to their dreams the rest returned apace,
By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low,
And in a silvery whisper heard him say:
Truly, thou know’st not, and thou need’st not know;
Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway;
I also know not, and I need not know,
Only with questionings pass I to and fro,
Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly

Doubt as weapon

'Imbreeding doubt'—the questioning spirit deliberately cultivates skepticism in the sleepers. His goal isn't truth; it's to wake them from complacency through dissatisfaction.

Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy;
Till that, their dreams deserting, they with me

True ignorance

The final lines collapse the distinction between the spirits' comfortable 'I know not' and the questioning spirit's 'true ignorance.' Both lead to the same place—but the path matters.

True ignorance

The final lines collapse the distinction between the spirits' comfortable 'I know not' and the questioning spirit's 'true ignorance.' Both lead to the same place—but the path matters.

Come all to this true ignorance and thee.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Clough's Doubt as Moral Drama

CONTEXT Clough wrote this in the 1840s-50s, when Victorian certainty was fracturing. This poem isn't about epistemology—it's about the ethics of questioning in an age of lost faith. The questioning spirit represents the intellectual conscience that won't let sleeping dogmas lie.

The poem's structure is a trial: the questioning spirit interrogates each human spirit like a prosecutor. But notice what he's really asking—not 'What is true?' but 'Why do you refuse to ask?' The spirits' repeated answer 'I know not, let me do as I am doing' isn't ignorance; it's willful passivity. They've chosen comfort over inquiry. The questioning spirit's job is to make that choice unbearable.

Clough was wrestling with Anglican doubt and religious crisis. This poem dramatizes the internal debate: the part of us that wants rest and certainty versus the part that can't stop questioning. The spirits represent the human desire for peace; the questioning spirit represents conscience—the thing that won't let you sleep.

The Trick of the Ending

The questioning spirit loses the argument. The chorus defeats him with sheer repetition—'We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know!' He goes quiet. But then he reframes his defeat as victory.

By kneeling and admitting 'I also know not,' he's not surrendering—he's revealing that his ignorance is active and purposeful. He 'perplexes' the sleepers, 'imbreeding doubt.' His questioning isn't meant to find answers; it's meant to disturb comfort. The final move is brilliant: he suggests that waking the spirits to 'true ignorance' (genuine intellectual humility) is the real goal. They'll eventually join him not because he proved something, but because doubt, once planted, grows. Clough is saying that the questioning spirit wins by losing—by making certainty impossible to maintain.