Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)Will
I O WELL for him whose will is strong! | |
| He suffers, but he will not suffer long; | |
| He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: | |
| For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock, | |
| Nor all Calamity’s hugest waves confound | 5 |
| Who seems a promontory of rock, | |
| That, compass’d round with turbulent sound, | |
| In middle ocean meets the surging shock, | |
| Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned. | |
II But ill for him who, bettering not with time, | 10 |
| Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, | |
| And ever weaker grows thro’ acted crime, | |
| Or seeming-genial venial fault, | |
| Recurring and suggesting still! | |
| He seems as one whose footsteps halt, | 15 |
| Toiling in immeasurable sand, | |
| And o’er a weary sultry land, | |
| Far beneath a blazing vault, | |
| Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, | |
| The city sparkles like a grain of salt. | 20 |