Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Who was Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson?

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets.

Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain haemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus". During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

Famous Quotes:

• 'Tis better to have loved and lost ...
• A day may sink or save a realm.
• It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Matchd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel; I will drinkLife to the lees. All times I have enjoydGreatly, have sufferd greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone; on shore, and whenThro scudding drifts the rainy HyadesVext the dim sea. I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known,cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honord of them all,And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroGleams that untravelld world whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnishd, not to shine in use!As tho to breathe were life! Life piled on lifeWere all too little, and of one to meLittle remains; but every hour is savedFrom that eternal silence, something more,A bringer of new things; and vile it wereFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,And this gray spirit yearning in desireTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho much is taken, much abides; and thoWe are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
• My strength has the strength of ten because my heart is pure.
• The greater person is one of courtesy.
• No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.
• Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die.
• Forgive! How many will say, forgive, and find a sort of absolution in the sound to hate a little longer!
• Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.
• I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.