WednesdayDec 24, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Algernon Charles Swinburne (April 5, 1837 - April 10, 1909) was a Victorian era English poet. His poetry was highly controversial in its day, much of it containing recurring themes of sadomasochism, death-wish, lesbianism and irreligion.
I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and no other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me.
When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fill the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit; And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root; For words divide and rend, But silence is most noble till the end.
Laurel is green for a season, And love is sweet for a day; But love grows bitter with treason, And laurel outlives not May.
All gifts but one the jealous God may keep From our soul's longing, one he cannot - sleep. This, though he grudge all other grace to prayer, This grace his closed hand cannot choose but spare.
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.
A babyÂ’s feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet, An angelÂ’s lips to kiss, we think, A babyÂ’s feet.
There grows No herb of help to heal a coward heart.
The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight.
To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office.
When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean.
Though our works Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this At least is ours, to make them righteous.
There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough.
Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise?
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Ah that such sweet things should be fleet, Such fleet things sweet!
A blatant Bassarid of Boston, a rampant Maenad of Massachusetts.
Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me; Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the windÂ’s feet shine along the sea.
And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His dayÂ’s work and his nightÂ’s work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.
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.
At the door of life by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death.
Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.
Change lays not her hand upon truth.
Despair the twin-born of devotion.
Fear that makes faith may break faith.
For in the days we know not of Did fate begin Weaving the web of days that wove Your doom.
Forget that I remember And dream that I forget.
From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no man lives forever, That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Gone deeper than all plummets sound.
His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.
His speech is a burning fire.
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.
Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.
It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be 'killed off by one critique' or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur.
Like rose-hued sea-flowers toward the heat, They stretch and spread and wink Their ten soft buds that part and meet.
Marvellous mercies and infinite love.
My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment.
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 LoveÂ’s hand to-day.
Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me.
The more congenial page of some tenth-rate poeticule worn out with failure after failure and now squat in his hole like the tailless fox, he is curled up to snarl and whimper beneath the inaccessible vine of song.
The sweetest flowers in all the world— A baby’s hands.
The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.
The thorns he spares when the rose is taken; The rocks are left when he wastes the plain; The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken, These remain.
Those eyes the greenest of things blue The bluest of things grey.
Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.
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