So I did actually write this last night (Saturday) while getting sleepy from slightly-expired benadryl (as suggested by my mom for an itchy response to... something?) and whilst trying to read The Two Voices by Lord Alfred Tennyson (it's very long ok) and trying to understand it better after finding out he wrote it after losing a dear friend and contemplating life and death. And no, that's not even close to a scenario I am in--praise God--But like, I can feel his sorrow through the pages with 200 years of time betwixt us.
Again the voice spake unto me:
‘Thou art so steep’d in misery,
Surely ’twere better not to be.
‘Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,
Nor any train of reason keep:
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.’
I said, ‘The years with change advance:
If I make dark my countenance,
I shut my life from happier chance.
I said, ‘I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.
‘And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new:
‘Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
Unmanacled from bonds of sense,
Be fix’d and froz’n to permanence:
‘For I go, weak from suffering here:
Naked I go, and void of cheer:
What is it that I may not fear?’
‘Consider well,’ the voice replied,
‘His face, that two hours since hath died;
Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?
‘Will he obey when one commands?
Or answer should one press his hands?
He answers not, nor understands.
‘His palms are folded on his breast:
There is no other thing express’d
But long disquiet merged in rest.
‘His lips are very mild and meek:
Tho’ one should smite him on the cheek,
And on the mouth, he will not speak.
‘His little daughter, whose sweet face
He kiss’d, taking his last embrace,
Becomes dishonour to her race–
‘His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honour, some to shame,–
But he is chill to praise or blame.
‘He will not hear the north-wind rave,
Nor, moaning, household shelter crave
From winter rains that beat his grave.
‘High up the vapours fold and swim:
About him broods the twilight dim:
The place he knew forgetteth him.’
And while I was maybe crying about it last night because of the benedryl...Today I still found the parts I understood to be very profound. Especially near the end. The man had BARS.
‘Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long’d for death.
‘’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want.’
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho’ no tongue can prove,
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature’s living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder’d at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
I wonder’d, while I paced along:
The woods were fill’d so full with song,
There seem’d no room for sense of wrong;
And all so variously wrought,
I marvell’d how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than Him that said, ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’
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