Canto LIV

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good    Will be the final goal of ill,    To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;    That not one life shall be destroy'd,    Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;    That not a moth with vain desire    Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;    I can but trust that good shall fall    At last—far off—at last, to all, And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?    An infant crying in the night:    An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LIV