Quotes by Alfred Tennyson

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untraveled world whose margin fadesForever 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!

Forerun thy peers, thy time, and letThy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dreamd not yet.

All precious things discovered lateTo those that seek them issue forth,For Love in sequel works with Fate,And draws the veil from hidden worth

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

I wither slowly in thine arms; here at the quiet limit of the world, a white haird shadow roaming like a dream.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves a shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,and slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip into my bosom and be lost in me.

Behold, we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt last -- far off -- at last, to all,And every winter change to spring.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,The flying cloud, the frosty light;The year is dying in the night;Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.Ring out the old, ring in the new,Ring, happy bells, across the snow:The year is going, let him go;Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Authority forgets a dying king

Break, break, break,On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!And I would that my tongue could utterThe thoughts that arise in me.O, well for the fishermans boy,That he shouts with his sister at play!O, well for the sailor lad,That he sings in his boat on the bay!And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hill;But O for the touch of a vanished hand,And the sound of a voice that is still!Break, break, break,At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!But the tender grace of a day that is deadWill never come back to me.

Let us hush this cry of Forward, till ten thousand years have gone.

The quiet sense of something lost

I embrace the purpose of God and the doom assigned

And down I went to fetch my bride:But, Alice, you were ill at ease;This dress and that by turns you tried,Too fearful that you should not please.I loved you better for your fears,I knew you could not look but well;And dews, that would have falln in tears,I kissd away before they fell.

Virtue - to be good and just -Every heart, when sifted well,Is a clot of warmer dust,Mixd with cunning sparks of hell.- The Vision of Sin

Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die

Theirs not to make reply,Theirs not to reason why,Theirs but to do and die.Into the valley of DeathRode the six hundred.

There has fallen a splendid tearFrom the passion-flower at the gate.She is coming, my dove, my dear;She is coming, my life, my fate.The red rose cries, She is near, she is near;And the white rose weeps, She is late;The larkspur listens, I hear, I hear;And the lily whispers, I wait.She is coming, my own, my sweet;Were it ever so airy a tread,My heart would hear her and beat,Were it earth in an earthy bed;My dust would hear her and beat,Had I lain for a century dead,Would start and tremble under her feet,And blossom in purple and red.

A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.