Alfred Lord Tennyson quotes:

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

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.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.

Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.

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

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

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

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.

Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to towered Camelot.

Authority forgets a dying king.

Silence, beautiful voice.

Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.

The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.

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

Boldly they rode and well,Into the jaws of Death,Into the mouth of hell.

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver.

All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon.

O Blackbird! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

Every man, for the sake of the great blessed Mother in Heaven, and for the love of his own little mother on earth, should handle all womankind gently, and hold them in all Honor.

Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.

What rights are those that dare not resist for them?

O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

As she fled fast through sun and shade The happy winds upon her play'd, Blowing the ringlet from the braid.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, Rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies, Tangled in a silver braid.

The dream Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.

Nor is it wiser to weep a true occasion lost, but trim our sails, and let old bygones be.

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott.

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.

Who is this? And what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be?

Love is the only gold.

And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thoughts; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the waves In roarings round the coral reef.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

The parting of a husband and wife is like the cleaving of a heart; one half will flutter here, one there.

A simple maiden in her flower, Is worth a hundred coats of arms.

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

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.

That man's the best cosmopolite Who loves his native country best.

I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone: And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky.

And every dew-drop paints a bow.

His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan.

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle.

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long, That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever.

The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remembered to have been Joyful and free from blame.

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

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

God's finger touched him, and he slept.

This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the man.

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

God and Nature met in light.

Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed, And up there grew a flower, That others called a weed.

The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet- Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.

Happy days roll onward leading up to golden years.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.

Sweet is every sound, sweeter the voice, but every sound is sweet.

But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain.

I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.

Her eyes are homes of silent prayers.

Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moans of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

I am a part of all that I have met.

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

He that wrongs a friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar ever condemned.

Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

From yon blue heavens above us bent The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect light I yearned for warmth and colour which I found In Lancelot.

It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known: It would have been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot, nor another.

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths; Love laps his wings on either side the heart Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts, So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.

The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow.

O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!

Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey.

Any man that walks the mead In bud, or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humors lead, A meaning suited to his mind.

The time draws near the birth of Christ; The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar When I put out to sea.

Oh that it were possible, After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love, Around me once again

I loved you, and my love had no return, And therefore my true love has been my death.

Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...

He makes no friend who never made a foe.

Better not to be at all Than not to be noble.

A life of nothing's nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth, To that last nothing under earth.

One so small Who knowing nothing knows but to obey.

Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than the darkest pansies, and that hair More black than ashbuds in the front of March.

All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.

The woods are hush'd, their music is no more; The leaf is dead, the yearning past away; New leaf, new life--the days of frost are o'er; New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before: Free love--free field--we love but while we may.

A pasty costly-made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks Imbedded and injellied.

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of: Wherefore, let they voice, Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

Rain, rain, and sun! A rainbow in the sky!

There has fallen a splendid tear From 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."

It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.

Some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

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 fall'n in tears,I kiss'd away before they fell.

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

The OakLive thy Life, Young and old,Like yon oak,Bright in spring, Living gold;Summer-rich Then; and thenAutumn-changedSoberer-hued Gold again.All his leaves Fall'n at length,Look, he stands,Trunk and bough Naked strength.

The quiet sense of something lost

Man is the hunter; woman is his game. The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, we hunt them for the beauty of their skins; they love us for it, and we ride them down.

Half the night I waste in sighs,Half in dreams I sorrow afterThe delight of early skies;In a wakeful dose I sorrowFor the hand, the lips, the eyes,For the meeting of the morrow,The delight of happy laughter,The delight of low replies.

I am part of all that I have met.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Never, oh! never, nothing will die;The stream flows,The wind blows,The cloud fleets,The heart beats,Nothing will die.