Alfred Austin
Alfred Austin
Alfred Austin DLwas an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895. Austin’s poems are little-remembered today, his most popular work being prose idylls celebrating nature...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 May 1835
gleam faces vain
In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile.
quality may obscure
No verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as poetry whatever other qualities it may possess.
rain hazards sunny
From sunny woof and cloudy weft Fell rain in sheets; so, to myself I hummed these hazard rhymes, and left The learned volume on the shelf.
winter rose snow
So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.
past mind age
Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind.
flower winter dumb
Where has thou been all the dumb winter days When neither sunlight was nor smile of flowers, Neither life, nor love, nor frolic, Only expanse melancholic, With never a note of thy exhilarating lays?
garden self-made made-it
No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.
dream stars fall
Falling stars are high examples sent To warn, not lure. Gross fancy says they are Substantial meteors; but that is not so. They are the merest phantasies of Night, When she's asleep, and, dimly visited By past effects, she dreams of Lucifer Hurled out of Heaven.
lips lessons maidens
Perhaps a maiden's bashfulness is more A matron's lesson than our lips aver.
song scent notes
In my song you catch at times Note sweeter far than mine, And in the tangle of my rhymes Can scent the eglantine.
flower moving warrior
Never did form more fairy thread the dance Than she who scours the hills to find it flowers; Never did sweeter lips chained ears entrance Than hers that move, true to its striking hours; No hands so white e'er decked the warrior's lance, As those which tend its lamp as darkness lours; And never since dear Christ expired for man, Had holy shrine so fair a sacristan.
real imagination fancy
Imagination in poetry, as distinguished from mere fancy is the transfiguring of the real or actual to the ideal.
baby rain window-panes
When held up to the window pane, What fixed my baby stare? The glory of the glittering rain, And newness everywhere.
summer autumn fire
Through the dripping weeks that follow One another slow, and soak Summer's extinguished fire and autumn's drifting smoke.