Alfred Austin Quotes

Omit death's certain sharpness, life would lack
The salt that lends it savour.

Death is master of lord and clown.
Close the coffin and hammer it down.

Doth Nature draw me, 'tis because,
Unto my seeming, there doth lurk
A lawlessness about her laws,
More mood than purpose in her work.

[…] faded smiles oft linger in the face,
While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!

[E]xclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

So long as Faith with Freedom reigns
And loyal Hope survives,
And gracious Charity remains
To leaven lowly lives;
While there is one untrodden tract
For Intellect or Will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still.

Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.

Why should you,
Because the world is foolish, not be wise?

Why from the plain truth should I shrink?
In woods men feel; in towns they think.
Yet, which is best? 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.
But feeling never wanders far,
Content to fare with things that are.

Whatever else he may do, a critic reveals and criticises himself.

Goodnight! Now dwindle wan and low
The embers of the afterglow,
And slowly over leaf and lawn
Is twilight's dewy curtain drawn.

[T]he charm of a half-neglected old garden arises from its having, once upon a time, not been neglected.

A writer cannot take his occupation too seriously. He cannot take himself too lightly.

Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves.

He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.