Tennyson’s Suppressed Poems

XXIII

οἱ ῥέοντες

Alfred Tennyson


I

ALL thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true,
    All visions wild and strange;
Man is the measure of all truth
    Unto himself. All truth is change:
All men do walk in sleep, and all
    Have faith in that they dream:
For all things are as they seem to all,
    And all things flow like a stream.

II

There is no rest, no calm, no pause,
    Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade,
Nor essence nor eternal laws:
    For nothing is, but all is made,
But if I dream that all these are,
    They are to me for that I dream;
For all things are as they seem to all,
    And all things flow like a stream.


Argal.—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers. (Tennyson’s note.)


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