Alfred Austin Quotes

If Nature built by rule and square,
Than man what wiser would she be?
What wins us is her careless care,
And sweet unpunctuality.

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

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.

I love the doubt, the dark, the fear,
That still surroundeth all things here.
I love the mystery, nor seek to solve;
Content to let the stars revolve,
Nor ask to have their meaning clear.
Enough for me, enough to feel;
To let the mystic shadows steal
Into a land whither I cannot follow.
To see the stealthy sunlight leave
Dewy dingle, dappled hollow;
To watch, when falls the hour of eve,
Quiet shadows on a quiet hill;
To watch, to wonder, and be still.

My virgin sense of sound was steeped
In the music of young streams;
And roses through the casement peeped,
And scented all my dreams.

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

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

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.

Who loves his country never forfeits heaven.

Never fear to weep;
For tears are summer showers to the soul,
To keep it fresh and green.

[…] there is no love,
That merits such high christening, but is built
Firm upon some foundation out of sight;
God, country, virtue, something not ourself,
To which ourself is nothing, save the proof
Of its invisible sureness.

Your logic may be good,
But dialectics never saved a soul.

Death is the looking-glass of life wherein
Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds.

Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings,
And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me.

Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.