I sometimes find it half a sin, To put to words the grief i feel, For words like nature,half reveal, and half conceal the soul within.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the difficulty of expressing deep emotions, suggesting that words can both reveal and hide true feelings.
Tennyson's quote reflects the complexity of communicating profound emotions, particularly grief. He suggests that while language can articulate feelings, it often falls short, only partially revealing the true essence of our inner experiences. The interplay of revelation and concealment in words highlights the limitations of language in conveying the full depth of one's emotions, leaving a gap between what is felt and what can be expressed.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming loss, one could cite this quote to emphasize the struggle of articulating grief.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control.
Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth.
Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin, and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.
But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.
We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.
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