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Alfred, Lord Tennyson

197 quotes

• “Like ballad burthen music kept, As on the Lariano crept To that fair port, below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; Or hardly slept, but watched awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o’er a terrace One tall agave above the lake.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Daisy" (1830)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Claribel" (1830)

• “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!'”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mariana" (1830)

• “He often lying broad awake, and yet Remaining from the body, and apart In intellect and power and will, hath heard Time flowing in the middle of the night, And all things creeping to a day of doom.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Mystic" (1830)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Miller's Daughter" (1832)

• “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 —”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Miller's Daughter" (1832)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Oenone", st. 3 (1832)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Palace of Art", st. 1 (1832)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The May Queen", st. 1 (1832)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Dream of Fair Women", st. 2 (1832)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Dream of Fair Women" (1832), st. 22

• “Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Gardener's Daughter", l. 139-140 (1842)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Love and Duty" l. 57 - 67 (1842).

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Love Thou Thy Land", st. 11 (1842)

• “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?”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Golden Year", st. 3 (1842)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sir Galahad", st. 1 (1842)

• “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 (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue", st. 6 (1842)

• “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!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Beggar Maid", st. 2 (1842)

• “All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Vision of Sin", sec. 4 (1842)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842)

• “Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Break, Break, Break" (1842), st. 1

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Break, Break, Break" (1842), st. 4

• “But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Break, Break, Break" (1842)

• “Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by.Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, being all unblest: Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, And I desire to rest. Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: Go by, go by.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Come not, when I am dead" (1850)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Eagle" (1851)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Third of February, 1852", st. 2 (1852)

• “I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Brook", st. 1 (1855)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Tithonus", st. 1 (1860)

• “His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: I do forgive him!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sea Dreams" (1864) l. 301-303

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Grandmother", st. 8 (1864)

• “Is not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Higher Pantheism", st. 2 (1867)

• “Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet — Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Higher Pantheism", st. 6 (1867)

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1869 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Flower in the Crannied Wall" (1869)

• “Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Lover's Tale (1879), line 466

• “Where love could walk with banish'd Hope no more.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Lover's Tale (1879), line 813

• “Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope, And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone. And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Lover's Tale (1879), line 815

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To Virgil", st. 3 (1882)

• “For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there But never yet hath dipt into the abysm”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 37-39

• “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!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 66-69

• “She sees the Best that glimmers thro’ the Worst, She feels the Sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer thro’ the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songless egg, She finds the fountain where they wail’d ‘Mirage’!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 72-77

• “The shell must break before the bird can fly.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From The Ancient Sage (1885), line 154

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hands All Round", l. 1-4 (1885)

• “Sharers of our glorious past, Brothers, must we part at last? Shall we not through good and ill Cleave to one another still? Britain's myriad voices call, 'Sons, be welded each and all, Into one imperial whole, One with Britain, heart and soul! One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!' Britons, hold your own!”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition by the Queen" (1886), ll. 31–40, quoted in C. C. Eldridge, The Imperial Experience: From Carlyle to Forster (1996), p. 81

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Merlin and the Gleam", st. 1 (1889)

• “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.’”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Merlin and the Gleam", st. 3 (1889)

• “Well, Gosse, would you like to know what I think of Churton Collins? I think he's a Louse on the Locks of Literature.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Evan Charteris, Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse (1931), p. 197

• “This laurel greener from the brows Of him that utter'd nothing base.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To the Queen, st. 3 (1851)

  Also quoted by: Alfred Tennyson

• “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.”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To the Queen, st. 8 (1851)

  Also quoted by: Alfred Tennyson

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