Alfred Lord Tennyson was a British poet who served as Poet Laureate throughout much of Queen Victoria’s reign, specifically between 1850 and 1892. His work was an important influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Today, he is one of the best-loved poets of his time. Read more about Alfred Lord Tennyson.
‘The Eagle’ is a powerful poem that captures the majesty and strength of the majestic bird, inspiring readers to reach for the heights of their own potential.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
‘Crossing the Bar’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson is about the journey into death from life. This poem sees death as a promising opportunity to move from mortality to something better.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
‘A Farewell’ challenges the reader to reflect upon the fleeting nature of human life, especially when compared to nature.
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
‘Now fades the last long streak of snow’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a moving poem that explores spring and rebirth. The poet penned this piece in memory of a friend who died.
Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
“Then what is life?” I cried. From his rent deeps
Of soul the poet cast that burning word;
And it should seem as though his prayer was heard,
For he died soon; and now his rest he keeps
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
By night we linger'd on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o'er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell.
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe
That seems to draw—but it shall not be so:
Let all be well, be well.
If I were loved, as I desire to be,
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear, —if I were loved by thee?
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.
O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet!
O that ’twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!...
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a historically important poem that tells of the incredible bravery of the British cavalry during the Battle of Balaclava.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a popular ballad that illustrates the life of a woman isolated in a tower in a tower far from what she wants to live and experience.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
The dramatic monologue ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson presents the indomitable courage and adventurous zeal of old Ulysses: a man of adventure.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
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