Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.

Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

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

The Burial Of Love

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Ringlet

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Edwin Morris

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

A Medley: Ask Me No More (The Princess)

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.

To The Master Of Balliol

Dear Master in our classic town,
You, loved by all the younger gown
There at Balliol,
Lay your Plato for one minute down,

II

And read a Grecian tale re-told,
Which, cast in later Grecian mould,
Quintus Calaber
Somewhat lazily handled of old;

III

And on this white midwinter day
For have the far-off hymns of May,
All her melodies,
All her harmonies echod away?

IV

To-day, before you turn again
To thoughts that lift the soul of men,
Hear my cataracts
Downward thunder in hollow and glen,

V

Till, led by dream and vague desire,
The woman, gliding toward the pyre,
Find her warrior
Stark and dark in his funeral fire.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Will

I.

O well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud worlds random mock,
Nor all Calamitys hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compassd round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crownd.



II.

But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,
Recurring and suggesting still!
He seems as one whose footsteps halt,
Toiling in immeasurable sand,
And oer a weary sultry land,
Far beneath a blazing vault,
Sown in a wrinkle of the mo...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Song Of The Spinning Wheel

Swiftly turn the murmuring wheel!
Night has brought the welcome hour,
When the weary fingers feel
Help, as if from faery power;
Dewy night o'ershades the ground;
Turn the swift wheel round and round!

Now, beneath the starry sky,
Couch the widely-scattered sheep;
Ply the pleasant labour, ply!
For the spindle, while they sleep,
Runs with speed more smooth and fine,
Gathering up a trustier line.

Short-lived likings may be bred
By a glance from fickle eyes;
But true love is like the thread
Which the kindly wool supplies,
When the flocks are all at rest
Sleeping on the mountain's breast.

William Wordsworth

Double Ballade Of Life And Fate

Fools may pine, and sots may swill,
Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,
Moralists may scourge and drill,
Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.
Let them whine, or threat, or wail!
Till the touch of Circumstance
Down to darkness sink the scale,
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?
What if winds be harsh and stale?
Presently the east will thrill,
And the sad and shrunken sail,
Bellying with a kindly gale,
Bear you sunwards, while your chance
Sends you back the hopeful hail:-
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Idle shot or coming bill,
Hapless love or broken bail,
Gulp it (never chew your pill!),
And, if Burgundy should fail,
Try the humbler pot of ale!
Over all is heaven's expanse.
Gold's to fi...

William Ernest Henley

Sir Launcelot And Queen Guinevere

Like souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.
In crystal vapour everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Flight

Are you sleeping? have you forgotten? do not sleep, my sister dear!
How can you sleep? the morning brings the day I hate and fear;
The cock has crowd already once, he crows before his time;
Awake! the creeping glimmer steals, the hills are white with rime.

II.
Ah, clasp me in your arms, sister, ah, fold me to your breast!
Ah, let me weep my fill once more, and cry myself to rest!
To rest? to rest and wake no more were better rest for me,
Than to waken every morning to that face I loathe to see:

III.
I envied your sweet slumber, all night so calm you lay,
The night was calm, the morn is calm, and like another day;
But I could wish yon moaning sea would rise and burst the shore,
And such a whirlwind blow these woods, as never blew before.

IV.
For, ...

Alfred Lord Tennyson