Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Quotes about heart

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was British poet laureate. Explore interesting quotes on heart.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 426 quotes34 likes

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson book Ulysses

Source: Ulysses (1842), l. 63-70
Context: It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Nothing Will Die (1830)
Context: When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.

“I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson book Ulysses

13 -17
Ulysses (1842)
Context: I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

“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

"Come not, when I am dead" (1850)

“Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace!
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

To J. S., stanza 18, from Poems (1832)

“Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 7
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

“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

" Sir Galahad http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/sg.htm", st. 1 (1842)

“A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

“Whate'er thy joys, they vanish with the day:
Whate'er thy griefs, in sleep they fade away,
To sleep! to sleep!
Sleep, mournful heart, and let the past be past:
Sleep, happy soul, all life will sleep at last.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Foresters

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

“Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Of me you shall not win renown:
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired;
The daughter of a hundred earls,
You are not one to be desired.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 1
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

“A good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and to the good under all change: lovely in youthful comeliness, lovely all her life long in comeliness of heart.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Letter to Emily Sellwood, quoted in Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, by Hallam T. Tennyson (1897)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)