The Two Voices

The Two Voices is a poem by Alfred Tennyson written between 1833 and 1834, published in his 1842 volume of Poems. Tennyson wrote the poem, titled "Thoughts of a Suicide" in manuscript, after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. Tennyson explained, "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life worth anything?'". In the poem, one voice urges the other to suicide; the poet's arguments against it range from vanity to desperation, yet the voice discredits all. The poem's ending delivers no conclusions, and has been widely criticized — the poet finds no internal affirmation, invoking "solace outside himself".

Quotes
"Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said; ''' 'Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.' '''
 * A still small voice spake unto me,
 * Stanzas 1 & 2.

Look up thro' night: the world is wide.''' 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. 'Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?' It spake, moreover, in my mind: ''' 'Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind. 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.'''
 * ''' 'Self-blinded are you by your pride:
 * Stanzas 8 - 11. Compare: "And fear not lest Existence closing your / Account should lose or know the type no more: / The Eternal Sáki from that Bowl has poured / Millions of Bubbles like us and will pour", FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám (1868). In the edition of 1889 the final line reads: "Account and mine, should know the like no more".

If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.'''
 * I said, The years with change advance:
 * Stanza 18.

That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.
 * I wept, Tho' I should die, I know
 * Stanzas 20 - 21.

To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? "The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.
 * "Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
 * Stanzas 37-38.

One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise.''' "When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung.  "I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear —  "Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life —  ''' "Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love — "As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about —   "To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law''': "At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed,  "To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause — "In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown...
 * ''' "Nay­ rather yet that I could raise
 * Stanzas 41 - 50.

While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. "If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?  "Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.''' There is one remedy for all. "Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. "Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth.
 * ''' "Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good,
 * Stanzas 53 - 57.

I told thee — hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind.  "For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
 * "That men with knowledge merely play'd,
 * Stanzas 58 - 60.

Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn.''' "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.  "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "'''If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like'''; "And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower  "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all."
 * "'''Cry, faint not: either Truth is born
 * Stanzas 61 - 67.

"Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? ''' "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. "I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:  "Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream"; "But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head —''' "Which did accomplish their desire, — Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.  "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: "But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face."
 * "O dull, one-sided voice," said I,
 * Stanzas 68 - 75.

But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse.''' "And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new:  "Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence: "For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?"
 * '''I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
 * Stanzas 77 - 80.

"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. ''' "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines.''' Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew.
 * "If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
 * Stanzas 89 - 91.

Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies.  "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity. '''"That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind. "He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end.'''  "The end and the beginning vex His reason: '''many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would.   "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.''' "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.
 * "Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
 * Stanzas 94 - 103.

Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain.  "It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.''' "As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state.  "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. "So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch.
 * "'''Yet how should I for certain hold,
 * Stanzas 114 - 119.

Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace; "Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night.  "Or if thro' lower lives I came — Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame — "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not.  "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?
 * "But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
 * Stanzas 120 - 126.

That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams —  "Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare." '''
 * '''"Moreover, something is or seems,
 * Stanzas 127 - 128.

"Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality."''' "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark.
 * The still voice laugh'd. '''"I talk," said he,
 * Stanzas 129 - 130.

No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death.  "'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want." '''
 * ''' "Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
 * Stanzas 132 - 133.

A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, "Be of better cheer".''' As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, "I see the end, and know the good". A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know".
 * '''A second voice was at mine ear,
 * Stanzas 143 - 145.

No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes: Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour ''' From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, To feel, altho' no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love.'''
 * Like an Aeolian harp that wakes
 * Stanzas 146 - 149.

And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.
 * And forth into the fields I went,
 * Stanzas 150 - 152.

I marvell'd how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought; And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!"
 * So variously seem'd all things wrought,
 * Stanzas 153 - 154.