Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes

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And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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 amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Charm us, orator, till the lion look no larger than the cat.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I will love thee to the death,
And out beyond into the dream to come.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I don't think that since Shakespeare there has been such a master of the English language as I. But to be sure, I have nothing to say.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,
Came that 'Ave atque Vale' of the Poet's hopeless woe,
Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen-hundred years ago,
'Frater Ave atque Vale'—as we wander'd to and fro
Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below
Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
King am I, whatsoever be their cry;
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see
Yet, ere I pass.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The night with sudden odour reeled;
The southern stars a music pealed.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I have led her home, my love, my only friend. There is none like her, none, And never yet so warmly ran my blood, And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished for end, Full to the banks, close on the prom- ised good.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
And the homeless planet at length will be wheeled thro the silence of Space, Motherless evermore of an ever-vanishing race, When the worm shall have writhed its last and its last brother-worm will have fled From the dead fossil skull that is left in the rocks of an earth that is dead.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Many an aeon moulded earth before her highest, man, was born, Many an aeon too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn, Earth so huge and yet so bounded — pools of salt and plots of land — Shallow skin of green and azure — chains of mountains, grains of sand!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The moanings of the homeless sea, The sound of streams that swift or slow Draw down Aeonian hills, and sow The dust of continents to be;

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Launch your vessel, And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, FollowThe Gleam.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
If all be atoms, how then should the Gods Being atomic not be dissoluble, Not follow the great law?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
What! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well? Infinite cruelty rather, that made everlasting hell, Made us, foreknew us, foredoom'd us, and does what he will with his own; Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The fires that arch this dusty dot — Yon myriad worlded-ways — "The vast sun-cluster" gathered blaze, World-isles in lonely skies, Whole heavens within themselves amaze Our brief Humanities.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Current among men, Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streams And torrents of her myriad universe Ruining along the illimitable inane, Fly on to clash together again.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, And the shining daffodil dies...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson