5 Alfred (Lord) Tennyson Quotes on Progress

Alfred (Lord) Tennyson quotes on progress

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.'

100. Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do: For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.

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.

106. Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

107. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.