Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes

Wherever there is a grain of loyalty there is a glimpse of freedom.

Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again.

At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.

Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean.

Change lays her hand not upon the truth.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;

His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran .

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet.

Marvellous mercies and infinite love.

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

We are not sure of sorrow; and joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul.

To say of shame - what is it? Of virtue - we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it's no longer sin.

His speech is a burning fire.

Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.

For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, not a soul upon earth would pity me.

You have a face that suits a woman
For her soul's screen
The sort of beauty that's called human
In hell, Faustine.

The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight.

There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.

My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment.

Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise?

Heart's ease of pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart's ease.

Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me.

For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end.

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget.

For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,/ All waters as the shore.

Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire ...

Change lays not her hand upon truth.

There is no safety-net to protect against attraction.

Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rose bed:
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead.

Fear that makes faith may break faith.

Where might is, the right is:
Long purses make strong swords.
Let weakness learn meekness:
God save the House of Lords!

Today will die tomorrow.

On the mountains of memory by the world's wellsprings, in all man's eyes, where the light of life of him is on all past things, death only dies.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Time stoops to no man's lure.

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.

Despair the twin-born of devotion.

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name.

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.

Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded at last.

Our way is where God knows
And Love knows where:
We are in Love's hand to-day.

A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away.

Faith speaks when hope is disassembled; faith lives when hope dies dead.

Forget that I remember And dream that I forget.

For till the thunder and trumpet be,
Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides.

Ask nothing more of me sweet;
All I can give you I give;
Heart of my heart were it more,
More would be laid at your feet..

Save his own soul he hath no star.

Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.

Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things.

There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate.

Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart
Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.

For no man under the sky lives twice

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.

The sun is all about the world we see, the breath and strength of every spring.

The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby's hands.

Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; love me no more, but love my love of thee.

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust.

While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three.

In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she

Love is more cruel than lust.

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide.

The loves and hours of the life of a man,
They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which.

In hawthorn-time the heart grows light.

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death

All the world is bitter as a tear

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow ...

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part.

There grows No herb of help to heal a coward heart.

When I hear that a friend has fallen into matrimony, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.