The moments between sleep and wakefullnessare YoursResting quietly beneath my eyelidsYou gaze long into my soul
Tears, Idle Tears--Lord Alfred Tennyson
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,Tears from the depth of some divine despairRise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,And thinking of the days that are no more.Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,That brings our friends up from the underworld,as the last which reddens over oneThat sinks with all we love below the verge;So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawnsThe earliest pipe of half-awakened birdsTo dying ears, when unto dying eyesThe casement slowly grows a glimmering square;So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.Dear as remembered kisses after death,And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feignedOn lips that are for others; deep as love,Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;O Death in Life, the days that are no more.I remember I was in 9th grade when I first read this poem and somehow in one of those melancholic moments, "tears from the depth of some divine despair" moved me deeply. Reading it now, after years, in another one of those empty moments, makes me feel like a little confused girl all over again!