Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quote

Then Some One Spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another Said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."
And One: "He had not wholly quench'd his power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"
To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.


"The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842).