77 quotes
[T]he Caesars of this world act sagaciously, perhaps, in making as much of their purple as possible. The world is largely governed by tailors and upholsterers.
The Poet's Diary (1904)
Winter is gone, and spring is over.
The cuckoo-flowers grow mauver and mauver
And Clara dies that Claribel may dance.
The Golden Age: A Satire (1871)
If you are not something of a philosopher,—and by philosophy I understand a serene temper, and the maintaining of an equable mind under the sharpest disappointments,—I do not advise you to cultivate, or at any rate to grow enamoured of, a garden.
In Veronica's Garden (1895)
[N]o verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess.
The Bridling of Pegasus (1910)
Is life worth living? Yes, so long
As Spring revives the year,
And hails us with the cuckoo's song,
To show that she is here
Lyrical Poems (1891)
[I]n all periods of transitional thought and belief the conscience suffers, since its old sanctions have been removed and none other have yet taken their place. It is undermined without being adequately propped up.
The Garden That I Love: Second Series (1907)
O thou sophist, Man!
Reason by reason proved unreasonable
Continues reasoning still! Confronted close,
What is this reason? Like the peacock's tail,
Just useful for a flourish, nothing more;
And when 'tis down, the world goes on the same.
Prince Lucifer (1887)
[…] faded smiles oft linger in the face,
While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!
Soliloquies in Song (1882)
My virgin sense of sound was steeped
In the music of young streams;
And roses through the casement peeped,
And scented all my dreams.
At the Gate of the Convent (1885)
True originality is not to be reached by striving after it. A man is original or he is not, as it happens, and as Heaven pleases; but, if he be original, he will be so without knowing it, and his originality will be shown in what we call the whole man, not in an assumed and startling vesture.
The most generous of critics, if he is to be discriminating and just, cannot, let me say again, allow that any verse which is profoundly obscure or utterly unmusical, no matter how intellectual in substance, deserves the appellation of poetry. But on a very thin thread of meaning poetry, or a very fair imitation of it, may be hung by the aid of musical sound.
The Bridling of Pegasus (1910)
One can put up with, indeed more than put up with, a certain amount of technical carelessness in Poetry, provided it be in other respects of a very high order, as not unoften, for instance, in Shakespeare and Byron. But similar blemishes in a picture would be all but fatal to it in the estimation of connoisseurs, since it would be the first thing that struck them in it.
The Poet's Diary (1904)
[C]harm appertains to the essence of the person or thing endowed with it. It cannot be acquired, it cannot be got rid of, and its results are produced without effort, since the person who has it cannot help producing them.
The Garden That I Love: Second Series (1907)
So, timely you came, and well you chose,
You came when most needed, my winter rose.
From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press
Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.
Soliloquies in Song (1882)
O'er the wires the electric message came,
"He is no better; he is much the same."
Disputed On the Illness of the Prince of Wales (1910)
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
Disputed