And with no language but a cry

[lishesquex]

So I'm still on my Tennyson kick.  I should probably explain.  Yesterday morning, I listened to the In Our Time podcast about Tennyson's poem In Memoriam.  When I got to work, I promptly looked it up and found that it was a SUPER LONG EPIC POEM.  And then I forgot about it until home time, whereupon I downloaded the free ebook and started reading the super long epic poem.  I love it already, and I'm only up to Canto LIV (54).

Here's LIV, which is probably one of the most famous sections:

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Lilian,
Thank you for the little bit of Tennyson on my blog. I hadn't read it. Not sure if the little bit you sent me gives me hope or not! I've been meaning to reply to your email about the poetry competition to tell you that I'd read some of your poetry a while back and it really impressed me. Have you read Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled? Fun with metre.
Ann

[lishesque.livejournal.com]

Hey Ann :) Yeah, this bit of the poem is simultaneously uplifting and sad. I haven't read the Ode Less Travelled - I googled it thinking it'd be a poem, but it seems to be a whole book? How was the Port Fairy Folk Festival?