Quotes from work
Tears, Idle Tears

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Tears, Idle Tears" is a lyric poem written in 1847 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson , the Victorian-era English poet. Published as one of the "songs" in his The Princess , it is regarded for the quality of its lyrics. A Tennyson anthology describes the poem as "one of the most Virgilian of Tennyson's poems and perhaps his most famous lyric". Readers often overlook the poem's blank verse—the poem does not rhyme.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“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)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Tears, Idle Tears

St. 4
Tears, Idle Tears (1850)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“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)

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