Poets And Critics

This thing, that thing is the rage,
Helter-skelter runs the age;
Minds on this round earth of ours
Vary like the leaves and flowers,
Fashiond after certain laws;
Sing thou low or loud or sweet,
All at all points thou canst not meet,
Some will pass and some will pause.

What is true at last will tell:
Few at first will place thee well;
Some too low would have thee shine,
Some too highno fault of thine
Hold thine own, and work thy will!
Year will graze the heel of year,
But seldom comes the poet here,
And the Critics rarer still.

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 Poet

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Early Spring

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

The Epic

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Northern Farmer (New Style)

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.

The Poets Mind

I.

Vex not thou the poets mind
With thy shallow wit;
Vex not thou the poets mind,
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river,
Bright as light, and clear as wind.


II.

Dark-browd sophist, come not anear;
All the place is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-birds din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.
It would fall to the gro...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Poet

The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dowerd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.

He saw thro life and death, thro good and ill,
He saw thro his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,

Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wingd with flame,

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight,
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,
Filling with light

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit;
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit

Cleaving took root, and springing forth anew

Alfred Lord Tennyson

In Quantity

On Translations of Homer

Hexameters acrd Pentameters.

These lame hexameters the strong-wingd music of Homer!
Nobut a most burlesque barbarous experiment.
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.



Milton

Alcaics.

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skilld to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starrd from Jehovahs gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan
Rings to the roar of an angel onset
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
Th...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Freedom

I.

O thou so fair in summers gone,
While yet thy fresh and virgin soul
Informd the pillard Parthenon,
The glittering Capitol;



II.

So fair in southern sunshine bathed,
But scarce of such majestic mien
As here with forehead vapor-swathed
In meadows ever green;



III.

For thouwhen Athens reignd and Rome,
Thy glorious eyes were dimmd with pain
To mark in many a freemans home
The slave, the scourge, the chain;



IV.

O follower of the Vision, still
In motion to the distant gleam
Howeer blind force and brainless will
May jar thy golden dream



V.

Of Knowledge fusing class with class,
Of civic Hate no more to be,
Of Love to leaven a...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

To...

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS


Cursed be he that moves my bones.

Shakespeares Epitaph.



You might have won the Poets name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gaind a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;

But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice.

And you have missd the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poets crown;
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:

Proclaim the faults he would not show;
Br...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love Thou Thy Land, With Love Far-Brought

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied past, and used
Within the present, but transfused
Thro future time by power of thought;

True love turnd round on fixed poles,
Love, that endures not sordid ends,
For English natures, freemen, friends,
Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,
Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings
That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Tho sitting girt with doubtful light.

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

Watch wh...

Alfred Lord Tennyson