A biography for Alfredhasn’t been written yet.
“Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.”
“Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.”
“Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet — Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”
“Is not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”
“And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.”
“His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: I do forgive him!”
“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.”
“And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.”
“I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.”
“We love not this French God, the child of hell, Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise; But though we love kind Peace so well, We dare not even by silence sanction lies. It might be safe our censures to withdraw, And yet, my Lords, not well; there is a higher law.”
“But oh 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 dead Will never come back to me.”
“Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.”
“Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time." Another said: "The crime of sense became The crime of malice, and is equal blame." And one: "He had not wholly quench'd his power; A little grain of conscience made him sour." At last I heard a voice upon the slope Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?" To which an answer peal'd from that high land, But in a tongue no man could understand; And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.”
“All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again.”
“As shines the moon in clouded skies, She in her poor attire was seen; One praised her ankles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. So sweet a face, such angel grace, In all that land had never been. Cophetua sware a royal oath: "This beggar maid shall be my queen!"”
“I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry For that which all deny them — Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, And all the world go by them.”
“My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.”
“But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?”
“Meet is it changes should control Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.”