Capitals are in all cases
inserted
in the reprint where the
Deity is referred to, "through" is altered into "thro'" all through the
poem, and hyphens are inserted in the double epithets.
Deity is referred to, "through" is altered into "thro'" all through the
poem, and hyphens are inserted in the double epithets.
Tennyson
I cannot tell if that somewhat be I.
The little bird pipeth, "why? why? "
In the summerwoods when the sun falls low
And the great bird sits on the opposite bough,
And stares in his face and shouts, "how? how? "
And the black owl scuds down the mellow twilight,
And chaunts, "how? how? " the whole of the night.
Why the life goes when the blood is spilt?
What the life is? where the soul may lie?
Why a church is with a steeple built;
And a house with a chimneypot?
Who will riddle me the how and the what?
Who will riddle me the what and the why?
SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS
OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND NOT IN UNITY WITH ITSELF
There has been only one important alteration made in this poem, when it
was reprinted among the 'Juvenilia' in 1871, and that was the
suppression of the verses beginning "A grief not uninformed and dull" to
"Indued with immortality" inclusive, and the substitution of "rosy" for
"waxen".
Capitals are in all cases inserted in the reprint where the
Deity is referred to, "through" is altered into "thro'" all through the
poem, and hyphens are inserted in the double epithets. No further
alterations were made in the edition of 1830.
Oh 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 summernoon
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 freewill
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 glances
Like thine own mother's when she bow'd
Above thee, on that happy morn
When angels spake to men aloud,
And thou and peace to earth were born.
Goodwill to me as well as all--
I one of them: my brothers they:
Brothers in Christ--a world of peace
And confidence, day after day;
And trust and hope till things should cease,
And then one Heaven receive us all.
