Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes

A truth looks freshest in the fashions of the day.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods.

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

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.

Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away.

Attain the unattainable.

I am a part of all that I have met.

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.

Tis held that sorrow makes us wise.

Virtue must shape itself in deed.

Ah! well away! Seasons flower and fade.

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

Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

God's finger touched him, and he slept.

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.

The parting of a husband and wife is like the cleaving of a heart; one half will flutter here, one there.

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew.

Rain, rain, and sun! A rainbow in the sky!

Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster.

A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas.

...and our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

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

The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow.

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?

Jewels five-words-long, That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time Sparkle forever.

Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain.

Nothing in Nature is unbeautiful.

I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.

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 look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott.

Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; ... 'So careful of the type', but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go' ... Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law- Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untraveled world whose margins fade forever and forever as we move.

O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice.

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Dear as remembered 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!

The woods are hush'd, their music is no more; The leaf is dead, the yearning past away; New leaf, new life--the days of frost are o'er; New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before: Free love--free field--we love but while we may.

It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.

And what delights can equal those That stir the spirit's inner deeps, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows?

The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.

As she fled fast through sun and shade The happy winds upon her play'd, Blowing the ringlet from the braid.

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.

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room

It is hard to wive and thrive both in a year.

And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.

Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Right well know I that fame is half disfame.