"With wide-embracing love Thy Spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. Though earth and moon were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee. There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou — Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed."

"No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life — that in me has rest, As I — undying Life — have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main."

"The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mateless play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away;—"

"But when the days of golden dreams had perished, And even Despair was powerless to destroy; Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy."

"Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, While the world's tide is bearing me along; Other desires and other hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!"

"Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers, From those brown hills, have melted into spring: Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers After such years of change and suffering!"

"Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee, Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?"

"I trust not to thy phantom bliss, Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, Benignant Power; Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!"

"But, thou art ever there, to bring The hovering vision back, and breathe New glories o'er the blighted spring, And call a lovelier Life from Death, And whisper, with a voice divine, Of real worlds, as bright as thine."

"Reason, indeed, may oft complain For Nature's sad reality, And tell the suffering heart, how vain Its cherished dreams must always be; And Truth may rudely trample down The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:"

"What matters it, that, all around, Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie, If but within our bosom's bound We hold a bright, untroubled sky, Warm with ten thousand mingled rays Of suns that know no winter days?"

"So hopeless is the world without; The world within I doubly prize; Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt, And cold suspicion never rise; Where thou, and I, and Liberty, Have undisputed sovereignty."

"When weary with the long day's care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again: Oh, my true friend! I am not lone, While thou canst speak with such a tone!"

"A heaven so clear, an earth so calm, So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air; And, deepening still the dreamlike charm, Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere."

"Still, as I mused, the naked room, The alien firelight died away; And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright, unclouded day."

"Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?"

"For that mist may break when the sun is high And this soul forget its sorrow And the rose ray of the closing day May promise a brighter morrow."

"What use is it to slumber here: Though the heart be sad and weary? What use is it to slumber here Though the day rise dark and dreary?"

"But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends; The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends Mute music sooths my breast — unuttered harmony That I could never dream till earth was lost to me. Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels — Its wings are almost free, it is home, its harbor found; Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound — O, dreadful is the check — intense the agony When the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again, The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain. Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless; And robed in fires of Hell, or bright with heavenly shine If it but herald Death, the vision is divine —"

"He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars; Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire And visions rise and change which kills me with desire."

"Then let my winds caress thee — Thy comrade let me be — Since naught beside can bless thee Return and dwell with me —"

"I've watched thee every hour — I know my mighty sway — I know my magic power To drive thy griefs away —"

"Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now? Since passion may not fire thee Shall Nature cease to bow? Thy mind is ever moving In regions dark to thee; Recall its useless roving — Come back and dwell with me —"

"The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow, And the storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing drear can move me— I will not, cannot go."

"First melted off the hope of youth Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew And then experience told me truth In mortal bosoms never grew 'Twas grief enough to think mankind All hollow, servile, insincere; But worse to trust to my own mind And find the same corruption there"

"I am the only being whose doom No tongue would ask no eye would mourn; I never caused a thought of gloom A smile of joy since I was born In secret pleasure — secret tears This changeful life has slipped away As friendless after eighteen years As lone as on my natal day."

"I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide."

"The news came to the village — the dire news which spread across the land, filling men's hearts with consternation — that Byron was dead. Tennyson was then about a boy of fifteen."Byron was dead! I thought the whole world was at an end," he once said, speaking of those bygone days. "I thought everything was over and finished for everyone — that nothing else mattered. I remembered I walked out alone, and carved 'Byron is dead' into the sandstone.""

"Should Heaven send me any son, I hope he's not like Tennyson. I'd rather have him play a fiddle Than rise and bow and speak an idyll."

"I don't suppose and his Cornish were as gentlemanly as Malorye made them, much less as genteel as Tennyson's heroes, epic shopwalkers in a well-decorated emporium of ."

"Tennyson knew his magician's business."

"[A]nswers to questions about ethical meaning cannot come from science. Tennyson... knew that the "good life"... required their successful integration. Tennyson called these two sources knowledge and reverence, personified as mind and soul. And he spoke of their union..."Let knowledge grow from more to more But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music, as before.""

"Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die"

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

"Robin: No man who truly loves and truly rules His following but can keep his followers true. I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred Save under traitor kings."

"Forget thee… Never— Till Nature, high and low, and great and small Forgets herself, and all her loves and hates Sink again into Chaos."

"Friends, I am only merry for an hour or two Upon a birthday: if this life of ours Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry Because a year of it is gone? but Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering 'It will be happier;' and old faces Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands, And thro' the blood the wine leaps to the brain Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock'd Sings a new song to the new year — and you, Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed."

"Whate'er thy joys, they vanish with the day: Whate'er thy griefs, in sleep they fade away, To sleep! to sleep! Sleep, mournful heart, and let the past be past: Sleep, happy soul, all life will sleep at last."

"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."

"Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark."

"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."

"When I am with my sweetheart kind, A happy youth am I; So great the wealth within my mind, I the whole world could buy. But when her swanlike arms I quit, In that sad hour of pain, Away my boasted wealth doth flit, And I am poor again."

"Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea."

"He who will establish himself on a certain height must yield according to circumstances, like the weather-cock on a church-spire, which, though it be made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it remained obstinately immovable, and did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. But a great man will never so far contradict his own feelings as to see, or, it may be, increase, with cold-blooded indifference, the misfortunes of his fellow country-men."

"Don't send a poet to London."

"Every woman is the gift of a world to me."

"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."

"Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland. Der Eichenbaum Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft. Es war ein Traum.Das küßte mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch (Man glaubt es kaum Wie gut es klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!" Es war ein Traum."

"At first I was almost about to despair, I thought I never could bear it — but I did bear it. The question remains: how?"

"Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schön und rein; Ich schau dich an, und Wehmut Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein."