The Shorter Poems of Alfred Tennyson Author:Alfred Tennyson Tennyson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TWO VOICES0 A Still small voice spake unto me, " Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?0 " Then to the still small voice I said: ... more » " Let me not cast in endless shade0 5 What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice did urge reply: " To-day I saw the dragon-fly0 Come from the wells where he did lie. " An inner impulse rent the veil 10 Of his old husk : from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. " He dried his wings : like gauze they grew; Thro' crofts0 and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew." 15 I said, "When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles0 ran, And in the sixth she moulded man. " She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, 20 Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied: " Self-blinded are you by your pride : Look up thro' night: the world is wide. " This truth0 within thy mind rehearse, 25 That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. " Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers0 In yonder hundred million spheres?" 30 It spake, moreover, in my mind : " Tho' thou wert scatter'd0 to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind." Then did my response clearer fall: " No compound of this earthly ball 35 Is like another, all in all." To which he answer'd scoffingly : "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who'll weep for thy deficiency ? " Or will one beam be less intense, 40 When thy peculiar difference0 Is cancell'd in the world of sense ? " I would have said, " Thou canst not know," But my full heart, that work'd below, Kain'd thro' my sight its overflow. 45 Again the voice spake unto me : " Th...« less