A Voice Spake Out Of The Skies

A voice spake out of the skies
To a just man and a wise
The world and all within it
Will only last a minute!
And a beggar began to cry
Food, food or I die!
Is it worth his while to eat,
Or mine to give him meat,
If the world and all within it
Were nothing the next minute?

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a renowned British poet of the Victorian era, born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. He is best known for his works like 'In Memoriam A.H.H.', 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Ulysses'. As one of the most popular poets of his time, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland in 1850. Tennyson's poetry is characterized by its rich imagery, deep emotion, and classical themes. He passed away on October 6, 1892.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

To Victor Hugo

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Princess (Prologue)

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Church-Warden And The Curate

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Doubt And Prayer

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

English

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Supposed Confessions Of A Second-Rate Sensitive Mind

O God! my God! have mercy now.
I faint, I fall. Men say that Thou
Didst die for me, for such as me,
Patient of ill, and death, and scorn,
And that my sin was as a thorn
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow,
Wounding Thy soul.That even now,
In this extremest misery
Of ignorance, I should require
A sign! and if a bolt of fire
Would rive the slumbrous summer noon
While I do pray to Thee alone,
Think my belief would stronger grow!
Is not my human pride brought low?
The boastings of my spirit still?
The joy I had in my free-will
All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?
And what is left to me but Thou,
And faith in Thee? Men pass me by;
Christians with happy countenances
And children all seem full of Thee!
And women smile with saint-like ...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love And Duty

Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed oer with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
B...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Vastness

I.

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs

after many a vanishd face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll

with the dust of a vanishd race.



II.

Raving politics, never at restas this poor

earths pale history runs,

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the

gleam of a million million of suns?



III.

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side,

truthless violence mournd by the Wise,

Thousands of voices drowning his own in a

popular torrent of lies upon lies;



IV.

Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious

annals of army and fleet,

Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause,

trumpets of vi...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Vision Of Sin

I.

I had a vision when the night was late:
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.


II.

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham

My friend should meet me somewhere hereabout
To take me to that hiding in the hills.

I have broke their cage, no gilded one, I trow
I read no more the prisoners mute wail
Scribbled or carved upon the pitiless stone;
I find hard rocks, hard life, hard cheer, or none,
For I am emptier than a friars brains;
But God is with me in this wilderness,
These wet black passes and foam-churning chasms
And Gods free air, and hope of better things.

I would I knew their speech; not now to glean,
Not nowI hope to do itsome scatterd ears,
Some ears for Christ in this wild field of Wales
But, bread, merely for bread. This tongue that waggd
They said with such heretical arrogance
Against the proud archbishop Arundel
So much Gods cause was fluent in itis ...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Ancient Sage

A thousand summers ere the time of Christ
From out his ancient city came a Seer
Whom one that loved, and honourd him, and yet
Was no disciple, richly garbd, but worn
From wasteful living, followdin his hand
A scroll of versetill that old man before
A cavern whence an affluent fountain pourd
From darkness into daylight, turnd and spoke.

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw
From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher,
Yon summit half-a-league in airand higher,
The cloud that hides ithigher still, the heavens
Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout
The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.
I am wearied of our city, son, and go
To spend my one last year among the hills.
What hast thou there? Some deathsong for the Ghouls

Alfred Lord Tennyson