Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes

525 Sourced Quotes

I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect light I yearned for warmth and colour which I found In Lancelot.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And, below, stuck out The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared Before man was.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
These are Astronomy and Geology, terrible Muses!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Yonder cloud That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a laboring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Must my day be dark by reason, O ye Heavens, of your boundless nights, Rush of Suns, and roll of systems, and your fiery clash of meteorites?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The water-lily starts and slides Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Tho' anchor'd to the bottom...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
But every page having an ample marge, And every marge enclosing in the midst A square of text that looks a little blot.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
All night, through archways of the bridged pearl And portals of pure silver, walks the moon.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year you shall not die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, And far, in forest-deeps unseen, The topmost elm-tree gather'd green From draughts of balmy air.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The woman's cause is man's. They rise or sink Together. / Dwarf'd or godlike, bound or free; miserable, / How shall men grow? - Let her be / All that not harms distinctive womanhood.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, To holy virgins in their ecstasies.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And all the fragments of the living rock (Huge blocks, which some old trembling of the world Had loosen'd from the mountain, till they fell Half-digging their own graves).

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and aimable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes man.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remembered to have been Joyful and free from blame.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known: It would have been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot, nor another.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Regions of lucid matter taking forms, Brushes of fire, hazy gleams. Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms Of suns, and starry streams.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths;
Love laps his wings on either side the heart
Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts,
So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
What be these two shapes high over the sacred fountain, Taller than all the Muses, and higher than all the mountain? On these two peaks they stand, ever spreading and heightening; Look in their deep double shadow, the crowned ones all disappearing!.... These are Astronomy and Geology - terrible Muses!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers;
Unfaith is aught is want of faith in all.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And the suns of the limitless universe sparkled and shone in the sky, Flashing with fires as of God, but we knew that their light was a lie — Bright as with deathless hone — but, however they sparkled and shone, The dark little worlds running round them were worlds of woe like our own.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Her court was pure, her life serene; God gave her peace; her land reposed; A thousand claims to reverence closed...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Every man at time of Death,
Would fain set forth some saying that may live
After his death and better humankind;
For death gives life's last word a power to live,
And, lie the stone-cut epitaph, remain
After the vanished voice, and speak to men.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
To search thro' all... And reach the law within the law...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson