Alfred Lord Tennyson

“The mirror crack'd from side to side"The curse has come upon me," criedThe Lady of Shalott”

“I came in haste with cursing breath,And heart of hardest steel;But when I saw thee cold in death,I felt as man should feel.For when I look upon that face,That cold, unheeding, frigid brown,Where neither rage nor fear has place,By Heaven! I cannot hate thee now!”

“In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,Like coarsest clothes against the cold”

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

“That which we are, we are.”

“And out of darkness came the hands that reach thro' nature, moulding men.”

“What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?”

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despairRise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.”

“Ah Maud, you milk-white fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife.”

“There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath beenThe stillness of the central sea.The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands,Like clouds they shape themselves and go.”

“I hold it truth, with him who singsTo one clear harp in divers tones,That men may rise on stepping-stonesOf their dead selves to higher things.”

“Yet I thought I saw her stand,A shadow there at my feet,High over the shadowy land.”

“Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,And myself so languid and base.”

“And was the day of my delightAs pure and perfect as I say?”

“Sooner or later I too may passively take the printOf the golden age--why not? I have neither hope nor trust;May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint,Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are ashes and dust.”

“Dear as remembered kisses after death,And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'dOn lips that are for others; deep as love,Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;O Death in Life, the days that are no more!”

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.”

“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.”

“Be near me when my light is low,When the blood creeps, and the nerves prickAnd tingle; and the heart is sick,And all the wheels of Being slow.Be near me when the sensuous frameIs rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;And Time, a maniac scattering dust,And Life, a fury slinging flame.Be near me when my faith is dry,And men the flies of latter spring,That lay their eggs, and sting and singAnd weave their petty cells and die.Be near me when I fade away,To point the term of human strife,And on the low dark verge of lifeThe twilight of eternal day.”

“The city is builtTo music, therefore never built at all,And therefore built forever.”

“It is unconceivable that the whole Universe was merely created for us who live in this third-rate planet of a third-rate moon.”

“Let the great world spin for ever downthe ringing grooves of change.”

“For words, like Nature, half revealAnd half conceal the Soul within.”

“It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.”

“HopeSmiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...”

“T is not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’We are not now that strength which in old daysMov’d earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“So I find every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber, and the street,For all is dark where thou art not”

“The words 'far, far away' had always a strange charm.”

“I hold it true, whate'er befall;I feel it when I sorrow most;'Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.Verse XXVII”

“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...”

“I have led her home, my love, myonly friend.There is none like her, none,And never yet so warmly ran myblood,And sweetly, on and onCalming itself to the long-wished forend,Full to the banks, close on the prom-ised good.”

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

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

“Forgive my grief for one removedThy creature whom I found so fairI trust he lives in Thee and thereI find him worthier to be loved.”

“To many-towered Camelot”

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

“Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.”

“the deep moans round with many voices.”

“Let me go: take back thy gift:Why should a man desire in any wayTo vary from the kindly race of men,Or pass beyond the goal of ordinanceWhere all should pause, as is most meet for all?...Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’- Tithonus”

“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’dTo dwell in presence of immortal youth,Immortal age beside immortal youth,And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus”

“My purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the Western stars until I die.”

“Though much is taken, much abides; and thoughWe are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.”