I was glad to see Clough’s fine poem “Say not the struggle naught availeth” quoted here just now.  In my opinion it is one of the three finest hortatory poems in our language.

My experience has been, however, that a lot of people struggle unavailingly with Clough’s grammar.  My own reading of the poem [MP3] tries to help.

(I said “one of the three finest.”  Here are the other two.  The latest of the three was written about 1910.  Apparently no-one has been inspired to write hortatory verse this past hundred-odd years.  Or perhaps there is no market for it.)