The plays and poems of Tennyson, spanning over 1,700 pages, reflect a diverse and creative mind. The works contain so many insightful messages on life and aging, like a father wanting to leave advice to his children, all preserved in time. The works that were my favorite follow:
- Memory
- I wander in darkness and sorrow
- We meet no more
- The passions
- How gaily sinks the gorgeous sun within his golden bed
- Love and death
- The two voices
- Youth
- The lord of Burleigh
- Lady Clare
- The talking oak
- In memoriam A.H.H
- Enoch Arden
- The Voyage of Maeldune
- The sisters
- Despair
- Vastness
I will finish with an excerpt from in Memoriam A.H.H:
"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be."