Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRSwas Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth6 August 1809
justice judging silence
He that wrongs a friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar ever condemned.
age toil senior-citizen
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil.
dream prayer eye
Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; ... 'So careful of the type', but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go' ... Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law- Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed...
life self sight
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.
summer flower fall
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
beach long sublime
Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time.
reading biblical bible-reading
Bible reading is an education in itself.
spring men fancy
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
strength rocks years
No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.
single air self
But while I breathe Heaven's air and Heaven looks down on me, And smiles at my best meanings, I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.
giving way tradition
There is always change, bad customs pass and give way to better ones.
order world way
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and god fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
rain men rivers
Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.
pain lying heart
But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain.