Circumstance

Two children in two neighbor villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall:
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Washd with still rains and daisy-blossomed;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred:
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a renowned British poet of the Victorian era, born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. He is best known for his works like 'In Memoriam A.H.H.', 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Ulysses'. As one of the most popular poets of his time, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland in 1850. Tennyson's poetry is characterized by its rich imagery, deep emotion, and classical themes. He passed away on October 6, 1892.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

To One Who Ran Down The English

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Northern Farmer (Old Style)

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Kraken

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Deserted House

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

On A Mourner

I.

Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;



II.

Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens
The swamp, where hummd the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;



III.

And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime.



IV.

And murmurs of a deeper voice,
Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Vastness

I.

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs

after many a vanishd face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll

with the dust of a vanishd race.



II.

Raving politics, never at restas this poor

earths pale history runs,

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the

gleam of a million million of suns?



III.

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side,

truthless violence mournd by the Wise,

Thousands of voices drowning his own in a

popular torrent of lies upon lies;



IV.

Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious

annals of army and fleet,

Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause,

trumpets of vi...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Early Spring

I.

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowd hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.



II.

Opens a door in heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacobs ladder falls
On greening grass,
And oer the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.



III.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro the woods,



IV.

The woods with living airs
How softly fannd,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.



V.

O,...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Charity

I.
What am I doing, you say to me, wasting the sweet summer hours?
Havent you eyes? I am dressing the grave of a woman with flowers.

II.
For a woman ruind the world, as Gods own scriptures tell,
And a man ruind mine, but a woman, God bless her, kept me from Hell.

III.
Love me? O yes, no doubthow longtill you threw me aside!
Dresses and laces and jewels and never a ring for the bride.

IV.
All very well just now to be calling me darling and sweet,
And after a while would it matter so much if I came on the street?

V.
You when I met you firstwhen he brought you!I turnd away
And the hard blue eyes have it still, that stare of a beast of prey.

VI.
You were his friendyouyouwhen he promised to make me his bride,
And you...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

To The Rev. F.D. Maurice

January, 1854


Come, when no graver cares employ,
Godfather, come and see your boy:
Your presence will be sun in winter,
Making the little one leap for joy.

For, being of that honest few,
Who give the Fiend himself his due,
Should eighty-thousand college-councils
Thunder Anathema, friend, at you;

Should all our churchmen foam in spite
At you, so careful of the right,
Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight;

Where, far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All round a careless-orderd garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.

Youll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garru...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Audley Court

Audley Court


The Bull, the Fleece are crammd, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.

I spoke, while Audley feast

Hummd like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. With all my heart,
Said Francis. Then we shoulderd thro the swarm,
And rounded by the stillness of the beach
To where the bay runs up its latest horn.

We left the dying ebb that faintly lippd
The flat red granite; so by many a sweep
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reachd
The griffin-guarded gates, and passd thro all
The pillard dusk of sounding sycamores,
And crossd the garden to the gardeners lodge,
With all its c...

Alfred Lord Tennyson