13 Alfred (Lord) Tennyson Quotes on Hope

Alfred (Lord) Tennyson quotes on hope

22. Then some one spake: 'Behold! it was a crime Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time.' Another said: 'The crime of sense became The crime of malice, and is equal blame.' And one: 'He had not wholly quench'd his power; A little grain of conscience made him sour.' At last I heard a voice upon the slope Cry to the summit, 'Is there any hope?' To which an answer peal'd from that high land, But in a tongue no man could understand; And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.

35. For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!

38. Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it, A barbarous people, Blind to the magic, And deaf to the melody, Snarl'd at and cursed me. A demon vext me, The light retreated, The landskip darken'd, The melody deaden'd, The Master whisper'd 'Follow The Gleam.'

44. In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain'd futurity, Though deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.

54. I wept, 'Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.'

59. 'Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. 'Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 'Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 'I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. 'If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; 'And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower 'Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.'

60. 'O dull, one-sided voice,' said I, 'Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? 'I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. 'I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven: 'Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream'; 'But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head - 'Which did accomplish their desire, - Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 'He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: 'But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face.'

70. Like an Aeolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes: Such seem'd the whisper at my side: 'What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?' I cried. 'A hidden hope,' the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, To feel, altho' no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love.

71. And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.

101. So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, Left with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point: Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

118. O eyes long laid in happy sleep! O happy sleep, that lightly fled! O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep! O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!

175. For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.

176. Friends, I am only merry for an hour or two Upon a birthday: if this life of ours Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry Because a year of it is gone? but Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering 'It will be happier;' and old faces Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands, And thro' the blood the wine leaps to the brain Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock'd Sings a new song to the new year - and you, Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed.