Quote #60

'O dull, one-sided voice,' said I, 'Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? 'I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. 'I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven: 'Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream'; 'But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head - 'Which did accomplish their desire, - Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 'He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: 'But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face.'

More from Alfred (Lord) Tennyson

  1. 'Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. 'Cry, faint not, climb: the summits s…
  2. I said, 'I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. 'And that, in seeking to undo One ridd…
  3. 'That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee - hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; 'Much less this dreamer, d…
  4. 'If all be dark, vague voice,' I said, 'These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 'The sap dries up…
  5. 'Yea!' said the voice, 'thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. 'If Nature put not forth her p…
  6. 'Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? 'Who forged that oth…
  7. 'Nay - rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. 'When, wide in soul, and b…
  8. 'Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? 'I cannot make this matter plain, But I …

All Alfred (Lord) Tennyson quotes