Richibi’s Weblog

        Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

           Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

           By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

        Believing where we cannot prove;

        Thine are these orbs of light and shade;

           Thou madest Life in man and brute;

           Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot

        Is on the skull which thou hast made.

        Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

           Thou madest man, he knows not why,

           He thinks he was not made to die;

        And thou hast made him: thou art just.

        Thou seemest human and divine,

           The highest, holiest manhood, thou.

           Our wills are ours, we know not how;

        Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

        Our little systems have their day;

           They have their day and cease to be:

           They are but broken lights of thee,

        And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

        We have but faith: we cannot know;

           For knowledge is of things we see

           And yet we trust it comes from thee,

        A beam in darkness: let it grow.

        Let knowledge grow from more to more,

           But more of reverence in us dwell;

           That mind and soul, according well,

        May make one music as before,

        But vaster. We are fools and slight;

           We mock thee when we do not fear:

           But help thy foolish ones to bear;

        Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

        Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;

           What seem’d my worth since I began;

           For merit lives from man to man,

        And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

        Forgive my grief for one removed,

           Thy creature, whom I found so fair.

           I trust he lives in thee, and there

        I find him worthier to be loved.

        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.

Tennyson was reflecting on a dear friend who’d

passed away, at the age of 22, of a cerebral 

haemorrhage 

the parallels for me are resounding

R ! chard