Alfred Austin was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895. Austin's poems are little-remembered today, his most popular work being prose idylls celebrating nature. Wikipedia
“Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings,
And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Candida to Valori in Act I, sc. ii; p. 35.
Source: Poetry Quotes, Is Life Worth Living? http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/9/3/1/19316/19316.htm (1896)
“Show me your garden, provided
it be your own, and I will tell you what you are
like.”
Source: The Garden that I Love (1905)
Source: Is Life Worth Living? http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/9/3/1/19316/19316.htm (1896)
“He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.”
Source: Is Life Worth Living? http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/9/3/1/19316/19316.htm (1896)
Is Life Worth Living? http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/9/3/1/19316/19316.htm (1896)
Source: As quoted in Growing with the Seasons (2008) by Frank & Vicky Giannangelo, p. 115., and one or two other gardening books, as well as on various internet gardening sites and lists of quotations. However, it is sometimes attributed to Voltaire, and about one-third of the time it is quoted without attribution (at times even without quotation marks). It is not to be found in Austin's The Garden That I Love or any of its five sequels.
Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 22.
Source: "Nature and the Book", stanza XVII; p. 68, At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
Source: "Nature and the Book", stanza XV; p. 67, At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Urania in Act IV, sc. ii; p. 178.
“O'er the wires the electric message came,
"He is no better; he is much the same."”
On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)
An 1871 poem on the illness of the Prince of Wales, although there is some doubt that Austin actually wrote this part. That classic compendium "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse" (2d ed. 1930; Capricorn paperback 1962) includes a dozen quotations from Austin but attributes this particular couplet (p. 17) to a "university poet unknown." It also provides a metrically more accurate first line, "Across the wires the gloomy message came," plus "not" for "no" in the second line.
On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)
Prose Papers on Poetry (1910)
Prose Papers on Poetry Macmillan & Co 1910.
Prose Papers on Poetry (1910)
“[…] faded smiles oft linger in the face,
While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!”
Source: "Unseasonable Snows", line 13; p. 38, Lyrical Poems (1891)
Source: "My Winter Rose", stanza VII; p. 23., Lyrical Poems (1891)
Source: "Nature and the Book", Stanza XX; p. 69, At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
"Prelude", stanza XI; p. ix., At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
Source: Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 262, Savonarola (1881)
Source: "Goodnight!", in Lamia's Winter-Quarters (London: Macmillan and Co., 1898), p. 163.
“Who loves his country never forfeits heaven.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. vi; p. 285.
“Never fear to weep;
For tears are summer showers to the soul,
To keep it fresh and green.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 264.
“Your logic may be good,
But dialectics never saved a soul.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Frà Domenico in Act II, sc. ix; p. 197.
“Death is the looking-glass of life wherein
Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds.”
Source: Savonarola (1881), Girolamo Savonarola in Act I, sc. iv; p. 49.
Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; pp. 6–7.
Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 6.
“Why should you,
Because the world is foolish, not be wise?”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Franklin in Act II, sc. iv; p. 109.
“There is no office in this needful world
But dignifies the doer if done well.”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Franklin in Act I, sc. iv; p. 65.
“The Devil is an echo
Of search unsatisfied.”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. iii; p. 35.
“Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves.”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Abaddon in Act I, sc. iii; p. 22.
“'Tis a world
Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price.”
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 17.
Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 15.
“Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.”
Source: Soliloquies in Song (1882), "A Woman's Apology", stanza XI; p. 26
“Who once believed will never wholly doubt.”
Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Lucifer in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 193.
“Who once has doubted never quite believes.”
Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Eve in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 193.
“Death is master of lord and clown.
Close the coffin and hammer it down.”
Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Adam in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 111.
Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Abdiel in Act III, sc. iii; p. 80.
“Love and naughtiness are always in their teens.”
Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Crone in Act III, sc. i; p. 63.
“[E]xclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.”
Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 117.
Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 13.
“Public opinion is no more than this,
What people think that other people think.”
Prince Lucifer (1887), Lucifer in Act VI, sc. ii; p. 189.
Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 112.
“No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.”
Source: The Garden That I Love (1894), p. 112.
Source: At the Gate of the Convent (1885), "A Defence of English Spring", p. 58.
Source: The Bridling of Pegasus (1910), "The Essentials of Great Poetry", p. 7.
Source: Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1898), p. 96.
Source: Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1898), p. 68.
“Men preach Philosophy, women practise it.”
Source: Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1898), Lamia on p. 66.
Source: Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1898), p. 6.
Source: In Veronica's Garden (1895), p. 92.
“Doth logic in the lily hide,
And where's the reason in the rose?”
The Door of Humility (1906)
Source: "Rome", XLI, line 11; p. 116.
The Door of Humility (1906)
Source: "Italy", XXXII, line 21; p. 82.
The Door of Humility (1906)
Source: "Switzerland", XXII, lines 15–18, 37–40; pp. 53–54.
Source: The Garden That I Love: Second Series (1907), p. 4.
