All things that flow
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All things that flow - meaning Summary
Perception Defines Shifting Truth
Tennyson presents a philosophical meditation that rejects fixed, eternal truths and insists on the primacy of perception. The speaker claims beliefs, visions, and moral categories are true only insofar as they are experienced, likening reality to dreams and emphasizing continual change. The recurrent line "all things flow like a stream" frames existence as fluid and subjective: what is real for each person depends on that person’s consciousness and shifting viewpoint.
Read Complete AnalysesI 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.
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