Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Quotes about time

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was British poet laureate. Explore interesting quotes on time.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 426 quotes34 likes

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.”

“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.

“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 trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Love and Duty" l. 57 - 67 (1842).
Context: The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,
And all good things from evil, brought the night
In which we sat together and alone,
And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart,
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
As flow but once a life. The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.

“Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" A Dream of Fair Women http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/dfw.htm", st. 2 (1832)

“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)

“He often lying broad awake, and yet
Remaining from the body, and apart
In intellect and power and will, hath heard
Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things creeping to a day of doom.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

" The Mystic http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Early-Poems-of-Alfred-Lord-Tennyson9.html" (1830)

“"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."
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."”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

St. 4
The Revenge (1878)

“We are ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Daydream: L'Envoi, lines 231-32, from The Complete Works of Alfred Tennyson (1879)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

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)

“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)