Will
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
I.
O well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud worlds random mock,
Nor all Calamitys hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compassd round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crownd.
II.
But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,
Recurring and suggesting still!
He seems as one whose footsteps halt,
Toiling in immeasurable sand,
And oer a weary sultry land,
Far beneath a blazing vault,
Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,
The city sparkles like a grain of salt.