If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lift Not the Painted Veil
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not
A Question by Shelley
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Then what is life?” I cried. From his rent deeps
Of soul the poet cast that burning word;
And it should seem as though his prayer was heard,
For he died soon; and now his rest he keeps
Somewhere with the great spirit who never sleeps!
He had left us to murmur on awhile
And question still most fruitlessly this pile
Of natural shows, What life is? Why man weeps?
Why sins?–and whither when the awful veil
Floats on to him he sinks from earthly sight?
Some are, who never grow a whit more pale
For thinking on the general mystery,
Ground of all being; yet may I rather be
Of those who know and feel that it is night.
Fourteen Lines 