Alfred Lord Tennyson (
1809-
1892)
O
Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of
Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
“The stars,” she whispers, “blindly run;
A web is woven across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun;
“And all the phantom,
Nature, stands –
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own –
A hollow form with empty hands.”
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the
mind?