You thought my heart too far diseased; You wonder when my fancies play To find me gay among the gay, Like one with any trifle pleased.
The shade by which my life was crost, Which makes a desert in the mind, Has made me kindly with my kind, And like to him whose sight is lost;
Whose feet are guided thro' the land, Whose jest among his friends is free, Who takes the children on his knee, And winds their curls about his hand:
He plays with threads, he beats his chair For pastime, dreaming of the sky; His inner day can never die, His night of loss is always there.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LXVI