Best 102 quotes of Algernon Charles Swinburne on MyQuotes

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul.

And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name.

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.

Ask nothing more of me sweet; All I can give you I give; Heart of my heart were it more, More would be laid at your feet.

At the door of life by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death.

A young man with a very good past. [Fr., Un jeune homme d'un bien beau passe.]

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran .

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which.

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.

Change lays her hand not upon the truth.

Change lays not her hand upon truth.

Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain, Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune That death smote silent when he smote again.

Despair the twin-born of devotion.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Faith speaks when hope is disassembled; faith lives when hope dies dead.

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides.

Fear that makes faith may break faith.

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,/ All waters as the shore.

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered isgrief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

For winter's rains and ruins are over... And in Green under wood and cover Blossum by blossom the spring begins.

For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath, and alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death,Of langours rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.

God's own hand Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him The end of all our ends is, but with us Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this At least is ours, to make them righteous.

Heart's ease of pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart's ease.

His speech is a burning fire.

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.

I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers And everything but sleep.

I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.

If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of pain We'd hunt down Love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein; If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of pain.

I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end

In fierce March weather White waves break tether, And whirled together At either hand, Like weeds uplifted, The tree-trunks rifted In spars are drifted, Like foam or sand.

In friendship's fragrant garden, There are flowers of every hue. Each with its own fair beauty And its gift of joy for you. Friendship's Garden If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part.

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide.

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.

I that have love and no more Give you but love of you, sweet; He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.

I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and no other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me.

Let weakness learn meekness.

Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.

Love, as is told by the seers of old, Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.

Love is more cruel than lust.

Love laid his sleepless head On a thorny rose bed: And his eyes with tears were red, And pale his lips as the dead.

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her: Love lies bleeding.