Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Quotes about love

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. ”

“Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Tears, Idle Tears

St. 2
Tears, Idle Tears (1850)

“Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Lover's Tale (1879), line 466

“Robin: No man who truly loves and truly rules
His following but can keep his followers true.
I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred
Save under traitor kings.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Foresters

Act II, Scene i
The Foresters, Robin Hood and Maid Marion (1892)

“Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great;
Christian love among the Churches looked the twin of heathen hate.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 85

“But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" Love and Duty http://www.readbookonline.net/read/4310/14259/", l. 1- 21 (1842) Context: Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself! If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.

“Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel?”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" Love and Duty http://www.readbookonline.net/read/4310/14259/", l. 1- 21 (1842) Context: Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself! If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.

“The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

The Poet (1830)
Context: The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
He saw thro' his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing'd with flame,
Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue...