Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes

525 Sourced Quotes

Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man, And the man said, "Am I your debtor?" And the Lord--"Not yet: but make it as clean as you can, And then I will let you a better.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I stood on a tower in the wet, And New Year and Old Year met, And winds were roaring and blowing: And I said, "O years, that meet in tears, Have ye aught that is worth the knowing? Science enough and exploring, Wanderers coming and going, Matter enough for deploring, But aught that is worth the knowing?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Those three stars of the airy Giants' zone That glitter burnished by the frosty dark.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
But the churchmen fain would kill their church, As the churches have kill'd their Christ.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The fiery Sirius alters hue And bickers into red and emerald.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, And rarely pipes the mounted thrush.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, And stared with his foot on the prey.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
As the husband is the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, As the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
All their cosmogonies, their astronomies...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion, sloping slowly to the west.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And bats went round in fragrant skies, And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes And woolly breasts and beaded eyes...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson