Alfred Lord Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809 in England and died October 6, 1892.He followed William Wordsworth as Poet Laureate of Great Britain. He held that position from 1850 to the time of his death in 1892, the longest tenure of any laureate. Robert Browning was his contemporary who said Tennyson was “insane” with revising his manuscripts extensively. T.S. Elliot described Tennyson as “the saddest of all English poets.” W. H. Auden said about Tennyson, “There was little about melancholia he didn’t know; there was little else that he did.”
Here are some Tennyson quotes:
“So sad, so fresh the days that are no more.”
“The words ‘far, far away’ had always a strange charm.”
“The city is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built forever.”
“I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.”
“The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”
And the lily whispers, “I wait.”