Nothing Will Die

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson and featured in 1830's Juvenilia with the rest of his early poetry, this is one of his many brilliant short poems. It was, and usually still is, printed along with All Things Will Die, which is almost the same poem but which approaches the theme from a more pessimistic standpoint.

 

When will the stream be aweary of flowing
    Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
    Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
    And nature die?
Never, O never, nothing will die;
    The stream flows,
    The wind blows,
    The cloud fleets,
    The heart beats,
Nothing will die.

Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro’ eternity.
’Tis the world’s winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro’ and thro’,
    Here and there,
    Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill’d with life anew.

The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
    Ever will be
    Thro’ eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change.