Alfred Tennyson Quotes

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

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.

So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch'd me from the past,
And all at once it seem'd at last
The living soul was flash'd on mine,

And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,

Æonian music measuring out
The steps of Time — the shocks of Chance — The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.

And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Mastering the lawless science of our law,— That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances.

There was no blood upon her maiden robes Sunn'd by those orient skies; But round about the circles of the globes Of her keen And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame WISDOM, a name to shake All evil dreams of power — a sacred name. And when she spake, Her words did gather thunder as they ran, And as the lightning to the thunder Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, Making earth wonder, So was their meaning to her words. No sword Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word She shook the world.

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot.

Let Knowledge grow from more to more; but more of reference in us dwell

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me — That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die

But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was, in ashes.
- Tithonus

My religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism.

I know not if I know what true love is,
But if I know, then, if I love not him,
I know there is none other I can love

So sad, so fresh the days that are no more.

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.