1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes
page 3

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was a British poet. He was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets.

✵ 6. August 1809 – 6. October 1892   •   Other names Lord Alfred Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 213   quotes 34   likes

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes

“From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

Pt. III, st. 4
The Lady of Shalott (1832)

“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

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

People , Light

“Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

Pt. IV, st. 6
The Lady of Shalott (1832)

Love , God , Fear , Light

“Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Stanza 124
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)

Fools

“Remember that sore saying spoken once
By Him that was the Truth, 'How hard it is
For the rich man to enter into heaven!'
Let all rich men remember that hard word.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act iv, scene 3
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

Men , Truth

“Be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth act what this wild Drama means.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Play, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“"I'll never love any but you," the morning song of the lark;
"I'll never love any but you," the nightingale's hymn in the dark.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The First Quarrel, stanza VI., lines 3-4; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love

“Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section xxii, stanza 1
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Night

“If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)

Law , Wedding

“Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade

St. 5
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)

Death , Hell , Horse

“Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 5
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

“In statesmanship
To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act iii, scene 6
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

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

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

From The Ancient Sage (1885), line 154

Bird , Flying

“The night with sudden odour reeled;
The southern stars a music pealed.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Rosebud, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Music , Star , Night

“…none can truly write his single day,
And none can write it for him upon earth.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Unpublished Sonnet (originally written as a preface to Becket), in Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, by Hallam T. Tennyson (1897)

“And ah for a man to arise in me,
That the man I am may cease to be!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section x, stanza 6
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

“Forget thee…
Never—
Till Nature, high and low, and great and small
Forgets herself, and all her loves and hates
Sink again into Chaos.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Foresters

Act I, Scene III
The Foresters, Robin Hood and Maid Marion (1892)

Love , Hate , Nature , Forgetting

“The song that nerves a nation's heart
Is in itself a deed.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Epilogue to The Charge of the Heavy Brigade, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Heart

“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

" The Grandmother http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Alfred_Lord_Tennyson/14415", st. 8 (1864)

Truth , Lie , Fight , Parting

“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

"The Brook", st. 1 (1855)

“That jewelled mass of millinery,
That oiled and curled Assyrian Bull.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section vi, stanza 6
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Tears, Idle Tears

St. 1
Tears, Idle Tears (1850)

Autumn , Thinking , Tear , Heart

“Insipid as the queen upon a card.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Aylmer's Field (1864); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“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

" Sea Dreams http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Alfred_Lord_Tennyson/14402" (1864) l. 301-303

Forgiveness , Sleep , Night

“Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow’d of the power in his eye
That bow’d the will.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Morte D'Arthur (1842), Lines 121-123

Forgetting

“You that woo the Voices—tell them "Old Experience is a fool";
Teach your flattered kings that only those who can not read can rule.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 131

Fools , Reading

“"He does not love me for my birth
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)

Love , Birth

“Follow you the star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine.
Forward, till you see the Highest Human Nature is divine.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 275

Star , Nature , Light

“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

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

God , Hope , Understanding , Sense

“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

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

Faith

“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

" Hands All Round http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/tiresias/handsallround.html", l. 1-4 (1885)

Love , Drink , Night , Country

“Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall'n away.
Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Stanza 21
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)

Sleep , Dead

“My God, I would not live
Save that I think this gross hard-seeming world
Is our misshaping vision of the Powers
Behind the world, that make our griefs our gains.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Sisters

The Sisters, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

God , World , Thinking

“The golden guess
Is morning-star to the full round of truth.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Columbus, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Truth , Star

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

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

To the Queen, st. 3 (1851)

“All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section xxii, stanza 3
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Bird , Silence , Dance , Night

“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

" The May Queen http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tmq.htm", st. 1 (1832)

Time

“Who can fancy warless men?
Warless? War will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon?
Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon?”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 172

Men , War , World , Dead

“Death's truer name
Is "Onward," no discordance in the roll
And march of that Eternal Harmony
Whereto the world beats time.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale

Death , World , Time

“My lord, you know what Virgil sings—
Woman is various and most mutable.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act iii, scene 6
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

Singing

“For now the poet can not die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

To ———, after reading a Life and Letters, stanza 4, from Poems (1850)

Music , Cry

“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 Lady Clara Vere de Vere

The Poet (1830)

Dreams , Soul

“O Love! what hours were thine and mine,
In lands of palm and southern pine;
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Daisy, Stanza 1; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love

“A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee:
Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part II, section iv, stanza 3
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Love , Soul , Christ

“It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson book Ulysses

Source: Ulysses (1842), l. 1-5

Age , Law , Sleep

“It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air.
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)

Time

“A breath that fleets beyond this iron world
And touches him who made it.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Harold, Act iii, Scene 2

World

“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

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

Literature , Thinking

“On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

Pt. I, st. 1
The Lady of Shalott (1832)

Lie , Clothes

“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.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Crossing the Bar

St. 4
Crossing the Bar (1889)

Hope , Time