Lord Alfred Tennyson
Lord Alfred 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...
bright dark fickle fierce tender true
Bright and fierce and fickle is the South,/ And dark and true and tender is the North.
arise cold gray thoughts thy tongue utter
Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me
fools-and-foolishness pile red
Even tho' thrice again/ The red fool-fury of the Seine/ Should pile her barricades with dead.
blood friends-or-friendship heart light near nerves wheels
Be near me when my light is low,/ When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick/ And tingle; and the heart is sick,/ And all the wheels of Being slow.
birds crying high twilight
Birds in the high Hall-garden/ When twilight was falling,/ Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,/ They were crying and calling.
autumn days depth divine gather happy heart idle looking rise tears thinking
Tears, idle tears,/I know not what they mean,/ Tears from the depth of some divine despair,/ Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes,/ In looking on the happy autumn fields,/ And thinking of the days that are no more.
breeze praise round stir thee
Round thee with the breeze of song/ To stir a little praise of dust.
crow leads
As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.
art husband thou wife
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown.
desire indeed inner near
Do we indeed desire the dead/ Should still be near us at our side?/ Is there no baseness we would hide?/ No inner vileness that we dread?
cursed forehead gold
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened forehead of a fool!
fathom mind shallow thou thy
Vex not thou the poet's mind With thy shallow wit: Vex not thou the poet's mind; For thou canst not fathom it
moving science
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point.
firsts toil should
All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things.