A review by mayajoelle
In Memoriam: Authoritative Text Criticism by Alfred Tennyson

4.0

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in Thy wisdom make me wise.
-from poem I-

Tennyson is a wonderful and skilled poet, one of my favorites. I didn't understand everything he wrote, and I didn't like everything I did understand. But that's all right. I'll return to this collection again, and I'll learn to love it better. For now, I am grateful for his words.

~

-LIV-
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

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.

~

That last stanza will haunt me forever. Two centuries ago, Tennyson captured the pain and beauty of trusting God when you do not know the answers. For all shall be well.