237 quotes
Admit that Homer sometimes nods, that Poets do write trash,
Our Bard has written "Balder dead," and also Balder-dash.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well — but ’tis not true!
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok’d souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.
Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds?—
To its own impulse every creature stirs;
Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers!
I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.
The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)
Tired of knocking at preferment's door.
The Scholar-Gipsy (1853)
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
The Scholar-Gipsy (1853)
For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.
The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts rang’d all round
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground.
The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849)
No deep the Poet sees, but wide.
The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849)
Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum’s helm,
Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest
He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume
Never till now defil’d, sunk to the dust.
Sohrab and Rustum (1853)
Not here, O Apollo
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
Empedocles on Etna (1852)
Her cabin’d, ample Spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty Hall of Death.
They out-talk’d thee, hiss’d thee, tore thee.
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and pass’d,
Hotly charged — and broke at last.
New Poems (1867)
Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man, taken by himself.
Democracy (1861)
The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames.
Thyrsis (1866)
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts
Hail’d; but the Tartars knew not who he was.
Sohrab and Rustum (1853)
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!
Again — thou hearest?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!
And see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance, and nod, and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.
The anguish of the deep-fix’d spear grew fierce,
And he desired to draw forth the steel,
And let the blood flow free, and so to die.