"I do but sing because I must." (Because I MUST.)

* * *

But who shall so forecast the years
      And find in loss a gain to match?
      Or reach a hand thro' time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
      Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
      Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor Hours should scorn
      The long result of love, and boast,
      "Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn."

*

O heart, how fares it with thee now,
      That thou should'st fail from thy desire,
      Who scarcely darest to inquire,
"What is it makes me beat so low?"  

*

I sometimes hold it half a sin
      To put in words the grief I feel;
      For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within. 

*

What words are these have fall'n from me?
      Can calm despair and wild unrest
      Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?

Or doth she only seem to take
      The touch of change in calm or storm;
      But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake 

*

One writes, that `Other friends remain,'
      That `Loss is common to the race' —
      And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
      My own less bitter, rather more:
      Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break. 

*

Behold, we know not anything;
      I can but trust that good shall fall
      At last — far off — at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
      An infant crying in the night:
      An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

*

A man upon a stall may find,
      And, passing, turn the page that tells
      A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darken'd ways
      Shall ring with music all the same;
      To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise. 

*

"I watch thee from the quiet shore;
      Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
      But in dear words of human speech
We two communicate no more."

And I, "Can clouds of nature stain
      The starry clearness of the free?
      How is it? Canst thou feel for me
Some painless sympathy with pain?" 

Excerpts from In Memoriam because good gracious Alfred Lord Tennyson makes me feel less (alone).