Quote#World
My God, I would not live
Quote byAlfred Tennyson · 1809–1892
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Sisters, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
English (original)
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.
— Alfred Tennyson
More from Alfred Tennyson
She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!'
Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: My own sweet Alice, we must die. There's somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by. There's somewhat flows to us in life, But more is taken quite away.
Like ballad burthen music kept, As on the Lariano crept To that fair port, below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; Or hardly slept, but watched awake A cypress in the moonlight shake,
Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall: But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody
He often lying broad awake, and yet Remaining from the body, and apart In intellect and power and will, hath heard Time flowing in the middle of the night, And all things creeping to a day of doom.
Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine —