Alfred Tennyson Quotes

There's not to reason why,
There's but to do and die

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

The Sea-fairies

Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam, Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest To little harps of gold; and while they mused, Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea.

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell,
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe
That seems to draw — but it shall not be so:
Let all be well, be well.

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known — -cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all — -
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, my own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle — -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me — -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and

I follow up the quest despite of day and night and death and hell.

Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow’d of the power in his eye That bow’d the will.

My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.

I cannot see the features right,
When on the gloom I strive to paint
The face I know; the hues are faint
And mix with hollow masks of night.

Verse LXIX

Follow the deer? Follow the Christ the King. Live pure, speak true,right wrong, Follow the King — Else, wherefore born?

There she weaves by night and day, A magic web with colors gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay, To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott.

But there is more than I can see,
And what I see I leave unsaid,
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made
His darkness beautiful with thee.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I.