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Alfred, Lord Tennyson Quotes
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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

“You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply.
The lion on your old stone gates
Is not more cold to you than I.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 3
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

Love

“Charm us, orator, till the lion look no larger than the cat.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 112

Cats

“When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Morte D'Arthur (1842), Lines 230-231

Chance

“All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burned like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

Pt. III, st. 3
The Lady of Shalott (1832)

Weather

“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

"The Higher Pantheism", st. 6 (1869)

“Authors—essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part,
Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 139

Art , Nature , Parting , Painting

“Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section xxii, stanza 9
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Girl , Flowers , Sun , Dance

“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Crossing the Bar

St. 1
Crossing the Bar (1889)

Star , Sea

“Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all
My friends and brother souls,
With all the peoples, great and small,
That wheel between the poles.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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

People , Soul

“She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section xxii, stanza 11
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Heart , Dead

“Come out, my lord, it is a world of fools.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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

World , Fools

“At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

St. 1
The Revenge (1878)

Men , God , War , Bird

“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

" The Golden Year http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tgy.htm", st. 3 (1842)

Men , Lie , Peace , Light

“That tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

St. IV
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852)

“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

" The Beggar Maid http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tbm.htm", st. 2 (1842)

Angels

“Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Stanza 38
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)

“In our windy world
What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Harold, Act i, Scene 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Faith

“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

" Oenone http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/oenone.html", st. 3 (1832)

Love , Life , Flowers , Tear

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

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" The Gardener's Daughter http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/englishidyls/gardenersdaughter.html", l. 139-140 (1842)

Light

“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

St. I
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (1852)

“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Crossing the Bar

St. 2
Crossing the Bar (1889)

Home , Star , Sea

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!
O happy sleep, that lightly fled!
O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!
O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Day-Dream

The Departure, st. 3
The Day-Dream (1842)

Love , Kiss , Sleep , Dead

“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade

St. 3
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)

Death , Hell

“Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

St. 5
The Revenge (1878)

Revenge , Heart , Sea

“Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Misquote of the lines "Theirs not to reason why, / theirs but to do and die" from The Charge of the Light Brigade
Misattributed

“The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
Ever will be
Thro’ eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Nothing Will Die (1830)

World , Change

“To do him any wrong was to beget
A kindness from him, for his heart was rich—
Of such fine mould that if you sowed therein
The seed of Hate, it blossomed Charity.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act iv, scene 1
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

Hate , Heart

“A princelier-looking man never stept thro' a prince's hall.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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

“Broad-based upon her people’s will,
And compass'd by the inviolate sea.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

To the Queen, st. 9 (1851)

People , Sea

“A mastiff dog
May love a puppy cur for no more reason
Than that the twain have been tied up together.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Act i, scene 4
Queen Mary: A Drama (published 1876)

Love , Dogs

“There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Part I, section xxii, stanza 10
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Life , Fate , Flowers , Tear

“As she fled fast through sun and shade
The happy winds upon her played,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Sun , Happiness

“"If I'm a beggar born," she said
"I will speak out, for I dare not lie,
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by.""Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret all you can."
She said, "Not so; but I will know
If there be any faith in man".”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clare

Lady Clare (1842)

Lie , Secret , Faith

“More black than ash-buds in the front of March.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Gardener's Daughter, line 28, from Poems (1842)

“Yet the moonlight is the sunlight and the sun himself will pass.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 182

Sun

“And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Day-Dream

The Departure, st. 4
The Day-Dream (1842)

World , Night

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade

Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
St. 2
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)

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?"”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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

Sense , Cry , Hope , Time

“Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."
St. 4
The Revenge (1878)

Sun , Fight , Time , Flying

“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 The Eagle

Source: The Eagle, 1851, http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/eagle.htm

Mountain , World , Sea , Sun

“Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right —
The leaves upon her falling light —
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

The Lady of Shalott (1832)

Housing , Lying , Night , Light