Alfred Tennyson

“I remainMistress of mine own self and mine own soul”

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

“Time...a maniac scattering dust.”

“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.”

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

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

“Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and for ever.”

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

“I wither slowly in thine arms; here at the quiet limit of the world, a white hair'd shadow roaming like a dream.”

“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“And at the closing of the dayShe loosed the chain, and down she lay;The broad stream bore her far away,The Lady of Shallot.”

“That loss is common would not makeMy own less bitter, rather more:Too common! Never morning woreTo evening, but some heart did break.”

“So runs my dream, but what am I?An infant crying in the nightAn infant crying for the lightAnd with no language but a cry.”

“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!”

“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.”