Read how to open files in File Open Database.

alfred (lord) tennyson Quotes

Alfred (Lord) Tennyson Quotes

 

Quotes

    • Idylls of the King
    • In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850)
    • Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall: But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth.
    • With blackest moss the flower plots Were thickly crusted, one and all; The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, 'My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!'
    • Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: My own sweet Alice, we must die. There's somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by. There's somewhat flows to us in life, But more is taken quite away. Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, That we may die the self-same day.
    • Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine - It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine -
    • O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: The grasshopper is silent in the grass: The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead. The purple flower droops: the golden bee Is lily-cradled: I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life.
    • Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear; And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.
    • I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, 'O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well.'
    • You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; Tomorrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
    • Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.
    • At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.
    • The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur.
    • Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young.
    • Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself! If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
    • The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
    • Meet is it changes should control Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.
    • But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?
    • My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.
    • I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry For that which all deny them - Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, And all the world go by them.
    • As shines the moon in clouded skies, She in her poor attire was seen; One praised her ankles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. So sweet a face, such angel grace, In all that land had never been. Cophetua sware a royal oath: 'This beggar maid shall be my queen!'
    • 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.
    • Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.
    • Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.
    • He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
    • We love not this French God, the child of hell, Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise; But though we love kind Peace so well, We dare not even by silence sanction lies. It might be safe our censures to withdraw, And yet, my Lords, not well; there is a higher law.
    • I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.
    • And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.
    • The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
    • His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: I do forgive him!
    • And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
    • Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet - Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
    • Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower - but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.
    • Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word.
    • For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!
    • First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man's the best Cosmopolite Who loves his native country best.
    • O young Mariner, You from the haven Under the sea-cliff, You that are watching The gray Magician With eyes of wonder, I am Merlin, And I am dying, I am Merlin Who follow The Gleam.
    • Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it, A barbarous people, Blind to the magic, And deaf to the melody, Snarl'd at and cursed me. A demon vext me, The light retreated, The landskip darken'd, The melody deaden'd, The Master whisper'd 'Follow The Gleam.'
    • Well, Gosse, would you like to know what I think of Churton Collins? I think he's a Louse on the Locks of Literature.
    • This laurel greener from the brows Of him that uttered nothing base.
    • And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons, when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet.
    • Broad based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea.
    • Thou who stealest fire, From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire! Strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.
    • In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain'd futurity, Though deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
    • Come forth I charge thee, arise, Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines Unto mine inner eye, Divinest Memory!
    • Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy reinspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.
    • The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, He saw thro' his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will, An open scroll, Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame: The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing'd with flame, Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue...
    • So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, Tho' one did fling the fire; Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams Of high desire.
    • Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world Like one great garden show'd, And thro' the wreaths of floating dark up-curl'd, Rare sunrise flow'd. And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise Her beautiful bold brow, When rites and forms before his burning eyes Melted like snow.
    • There was no blood upon her maiden robes Sunn'd by those orient skies; But round about the circles of the globes Of her keen And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame WISDOM, a name to shake All evil dreams of power - a sacred name. And when she spake, Her words did gather thunder as they ran, And as the lightning to the thunder Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, Making earth wonder, So was their meaning to her words. No sword Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word She shook the world.
    • A still small voice spake unto me, '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.'
    • 'Self-blinded are you by your pride: 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.
    • I said, 'The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.
    • St. 18
    • I wept, 'Tho' I should die, I know 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.'
    • 'Do men love thee? Art thou so bound 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.
    • 'Nay - rather yet that I could raise 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...
    • 'Yea!' said the voice, 'thy dream was good, 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.
    • 'That men with knowledge merely play'd, 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.
    • 'Cry, faint not: either Truth is born 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.'
    • 'O dull, one-sided voice,' said I, '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.'
    • I said, 'I toil beneath the curse, 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?'
    • 'If all be dark, vague voice,' I said, '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.
    • 'Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, 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.
    • 'Yet how should I for certain hold, 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.
    • 'But, if I lapsed from nobler place, 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?
    • 'Moreover, something is or seems, 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.'
    • The still voice laugh'd. 'I talk,' said he, '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.
    • 'Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 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.'
    • A second voice was at mine ear, 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'.
    • Like an Aeolian harp that wakes 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.
    • And forth into the fields I went, 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.
    • So variously seem'd all things wrought, 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!'
    • Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown: You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired; The daughter of a hundred earls, You are not one to be desired.
    • A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
    • You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I.
    • Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
    • In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon.
    • There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes.
    • There is no joy but calm!
    • Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
    • Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
    • Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
    • On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many-towered Camelot.
    • Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Through the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot.
    • All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burned like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot.
    • From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, 'Tirra lirra,' by the river Sang Sir Lancelot.
    • She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She looked down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror cracked from side to side; 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott.
    • Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right - The leaves upon her falling light - Thro' the noises of the night, She floated down to Camelot: And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott. Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darkened wholly, Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott.
    • Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame, And around the prow they read her name, The Lady of Shalott. Who is this? And what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, 'She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.'
    • Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
    • In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
    • He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
    • Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.
    • I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move: Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.
    • Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
    • Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
    • O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.
    • What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.
    • Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field
    • Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do: For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.
    • So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, Left with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point: Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
    • Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
    • Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine -
    • There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
    • Mated with a squalid savage - what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time -
    • Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
    • Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
    • Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
    • It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
    • I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
    • I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.
    • How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
    • Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me - That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
    • The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.
    • It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are - One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
    • The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither'd in the thorny close, Or scatter'd blanching on the grass. He gazes on the silent dead: 'They perish'd in their daring deeds.' This proverb flashes thro' his head, 'The many fail: the one succeeds.'
    • And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow'd him.
    • O eyes long laid in happy sleep! O happy sleep, that lightly fled! O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep! O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!
    • And o'er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
    • So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose?
    • It was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air. Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare.
    • 'He does not love me for my birth Nor for my lands so broad and fair; He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well,' said Lady Clare.
    • 'If I'm a beggar born,' she said 'I will speak out, for I dare not lie, Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by.' 'Nay now, my child,' said Alice the nurse, 'But keep the secret all you can.' She said, 'Not so; but I will know If there be any faith in man.'
    • She clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare: She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair. The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought Leapt up from where she lay. Dropped her head in the maiden's hand. And followed her all the way.
    • 'If I come dressed like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born,' she said, 'And not the Lady Clare.'
    • 'If you are not the heiress born, And I,' said he, 'the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare.'
    • And one said smiling 'Pretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.
    • A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she.
    • As thro' the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss'd again with tears.
    • And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever.
    • Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
    • The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
    • O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.
    • Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
    • Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
    • O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
    • Man is the hunter; woman is his game: The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; They love us for it, and we ride them down.
    • Man for the field and woman for the hearth: Man for the sword and for the needle she: Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey; All else confusion.
    • Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, 'She must weep or she will die.'
    • You wrong yourselves - the woman is so hard Upon the woman.
    • Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.
    • Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.
    • Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.
    • Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
    • Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him.
    • God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled - Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made. Some patient force to change them when we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowd.
    • Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
    • Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
    • Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
    • Bury the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation; Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation; Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior's pall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.
    • Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, As fits an universal woe, Let the long, long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low.
    • Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime. O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew, O iron nerve to true occasion true, O fallen at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!
    • Yea, let all good things await Him who cares not to be great But as he saves or serves the state. Not once or twice in our rough island-story The path of duty was the way to glory. He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden-roses.
    • Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him, God accept him, Christ receive him!
    • Half a league half a league Half a league onward All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred: 'Forward the Light Brigade Charge for the guns' he said Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
    • 'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred.
    • Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.
    • Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.
    • Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault? All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen) Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, Dead perfection, no more.
    • And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!
    • Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, I long'd so heartily then and there To give him the grasp of fellowship; But while I past he was humming an air, Stopt, and then with a riding whip, Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, And curving a contumelious lip, Gorgonised me from head to foot With a stony British stare.
    • Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown.
    • For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die.
    • All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon.
    • Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun.
    • There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;' And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;' The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;' And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'
    • She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.
    • A shadow flits before me, Not thou, but like to thee: Ah Christ, that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be.
    • At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: 'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!' Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ''Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?'
    • Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: 'I know you are no coward; You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard, To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.'
    • 'Shall we fight or shall we fly? Good Sir Richard, tell us now, For to fight is but to die! There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.' And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men. Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'
    • Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below; For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen, And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between.
    • Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea.
    • But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
    • Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark.
    • For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
    • Friends, I am only merry for an hour or two Upon a birthday: if this life of ours Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry Because a year of it is gone? but Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering 'It will be happier;' and old faces Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands, And thro' the blood the wine leaps to the brain Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock'd Sings a new song to the new year - and you, Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed.
    • The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
    • The news came to the village - the dire news which spread across the land, filling men's hearts with consternation - that Byron was dead. Tennyson was then about a boy of fifteen. 'Byron was dead! I thought the whole world was at an end,' he once said, speaking of those bygone days. 'I thought everything was over and finished for everyone - that nothing else mattered. I remembered I walked out alone, and carved 'Byron is dead' into the sandstone.'
    • alfred (lord) tennyson

Quotes by Famous People

Who Were Also Born On Who Also Died On

Copyright © www.quotesby.net