Alfred Tennyson

Death's truer name Is "Onward," no discordance in the roll And march of that Eternal Harmony Whereto the world beats time.

The night with sudden odour reeled; The southern stars a music pealed.

Ambition Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink The more you thirst—yea—drink too much, as men Have done on rafts of wreck—it drives you mad.

Old men must die, or the world would grow mouldy, would only breed the past again.

A breath that fleets beyond this iron world And touches him who made it.

In our windy world What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.

Be patient. Our Playwright may show In some fifth act what this wild Drama means.

What use to brood? This life of mingled pains And joys to me, Despite of every Faith and Creed, remains The Mystery.

The song that nerves a nation's heart Is in itself a deed.

Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all My friends and brother souls, With all the peoples, great and small, That wheel between the poles.

A princelier-looking man never stept thro' a prince's hall.

No sound is breathed so potent to coerce And to conciliate, as their names who dare For that sweet mother-land which gave them birth Nobly to do, nobly to die.

The golden guess Is morning-star to the full round of truth.

My God, I would not live Save that I think this gross hard-seeming world Is our misshaping vision of the Powers Behind the world, that make our griefs our gains.

"I'll never love any but you," the morning song of the lark; "I'll never love any but you," the nightingale's hymn in the dark.

Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.

So dear a life your arms enfold, Whose crying is a cry for gold.

O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!

Insipid as the queen upon a card.

Mastering the lawless science of our law,— That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances.

For now the poet can not die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry.

We are ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times.

More black than ash-buds in the front of March.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet! Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.