Tennyson in 1862 with his wife Emily (1813-1896) and his sons Lionel (1854-1886) and Hallam (1852-1928), who later became the 2nd Governor-General of Australia.
Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplaces of the English language, including: "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the second most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare.
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
Lord Tennyson is buried at Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. Go there to read more of his works.
A simple maiden in her flower
ReplyDeleteIs worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
Ah, Yes...
ReplyDelete'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
ReplyDeleteOf 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 days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE
ReplyDeletePRINCE OF WALES
I.
Welcome, welcome with one voice!
In your welfare we rejoice,
Sons and brothers that have sent,
From isle and cape and continent,
Produce of your field and flood,
Mount and mine, and primal wood;
Works of subtle brain and hand,
And splendors of the morning land,
Gifts from every British zone;
Britons, hold your own!
II.
May we find, as ages run,
The mother featured in the son:
And may yours for ever be
That old strength and constancy
Which has made your fathers great
In our ancient island State,
And wherever her flag fly,
Glorying between sea and sky,
Makes the might of Britain known;
Britons, hold your own!
III.
Britain fought her sons of yore–
Britain fail’d; and never more,
Careless of our growing kin,
Shall we sin our father’s sin,
Men that in a narrower day–
Unprophetic rulers they–
Drove from out the mother’s nest
That young eagle of the West
To forage for herself alone;
Britons, hold your own!
IV.
Sharers of our glorious past,
Brothers, must we part at last?
Shall we not thro’ good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain’s myriad voices call,
‘Sons, be welded each and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne!’
Britons, hold your own!