“Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there's not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.”

—  Algernon Charles Swinburne , book Poems and Ballads

"Rococo", lines 17-24.
Poems and Ballads (1866-89)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sle…" by Algernon Charles Swinburne?
Algernon Charles Swinburne photo
Algernon Charles Swinburne 87
English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic 1837–1909

Related quotes

Guy De Maupassant photo

“We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.”

Guy De Maupassant Bel-Ami

Source: Bel-Ami

Edward FitzGerald photo

“Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.”

Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883) English poet and writer

Chronomoros. In Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald (1889), pg. 461.

Arthur Symons photo

“I have laid sorrow to sleep;
Love sleeps.
She who oft made me weep
Now weeps.”

Arthur Symons (1865–1945) British poet

Love and Sleep, st. 1.

John Fletcher photo

“Let no man fear to die: We love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.”

John Fletcher The Humorous Lieutenant

Act III, scene 6.
The Humorous Lieutenant (c. 1619; published 1647)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Ever sits the lady weeping —
Weeping night and day —
One perpetual vigil keeping,
Till life pass away,
And she join the seven who sleep.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

D.H. Lawrence photo

“I suppose that's what we do in death⎯⎯⎯sleep in wonder.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers (1913), Ch.11

“The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)
Context: Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“I would not even have him weep
O'er his Italian love's last sleep.
Oh, tears are a most worthless token,
When hearts they would have soothed are broken.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Painter's Love from The London Literary Gazette (14th December 1822)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples http://www.readprint.com/work-1373/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley (1818), st. 5

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“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)

Related topics