I dream'd there would be Spring no more, That Nature's ancient power was lost: The streets were black with smoke and frost, They chatter'd trifles at the door:
I wander'd from the noisy town, I found a wood with thorny boughs: I took the thorns to bind my brows, I wore them like a civic crown:
I met with scoffs, I met with scorns From youth and babe and hoary hairs: They call'd me in the public squares The fool that wears a crown of thorns:
They call'd me fool, they call'd me child: I found an angel of the night; The voice was low, the look was bright; He look'd upon my crown and smiled:
He reach'd the glory of a hand, That seem'd to touch it into leaf: The voice was not the voice of grief, The words were hard to understand.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LXIX