In Memoriam quotes

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law-- Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed--

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out, There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

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.

Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.

Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow.

So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life;

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.

Behold, ye speak an idle thing: Ye never knew the sacred dust: I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing:

Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true?

Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

’Tis well, ’tis something, we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land.