„Meine Stärke ist wie die Stärke von zehn, denn mein Herz ist rein.“
Original engl.: "My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure." - Sir Galahad http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/Galahad.htm (1842)
Zitate von Alfred Tennyson
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Alfred Tennyson
Geburtstag: 6. August 1809
Todesdatum: 6. Oktober 1892
Andere Namen: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lord Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1. Baron Tennyson war ein britischer Dichter des Viktorianischen Zeitalters.
Photo: Julia Margaret Cameron, The Art Institute of Chicago / Public domain
Zitate Alfred Tennyson
„Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, buch Ulysses
Quelle: Ulysses (1842), l. 46-53
Kontext: Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
„The many fail: the one succeeds.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream
The Arrival, st. 2
The Day-Dream (1842)
Kontext: The bodies and the bones of those
That strove in other days to pass,
Are wither'd in the thorny close,
Or scatter'd blanching on the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead:
"They perish'd in their daring deeds."
This proverb flashes thro' his head,
"The many fail: the one succeeds."
„Thus truth was multiplied on truth“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere
The Poet (1830)
Kontext: p>Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one great garden show'd,
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark up-curl'd,
Rare sunrise flow'dAnd Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow,
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.</p
„But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.“
" Love and Duty http://www.readbookonline.net/read/4310/14259/", l. 1- 21 (1842)
Kontext: Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
„Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.“
" Tithonus http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tith.htm", st. 1 (1860)
Kontext: 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.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
„Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel?“
" Love and Duty http://www.readbookonline.net/read/4310/14259/", l. 1- 21 (1842)
Kontext: Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
„O young Mariner,
You from the haven
Under the sea-cliff,
You that are watching
The gray Magician
With eyes of wonder,
I am Merlin,
And I am dying,
I am Merlin
Who follow The Gleam.“
" Merlin and the Gleam http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/demeter/merlingleam.html", st. 1 (1889)
„And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere
The Poet (1830)
Kontext: There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Sunn'd by those orient skies;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen
And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name.
And when she spake,
Her words did gather thunder as they ran,
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,
Making earth wonder,
So was their meaning to her words. No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,
But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word
She shook the world.
„Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.“
"Flower in the Crannied Wall" (1869)
Kontext: Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
„Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade
St. 2
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
Kontext: "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
„To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, buch Ulysses
Quelle: Ulysses (1842), l. 22-32
Kontext: How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
„We dare not even by silence sanction lies.“
" The Third of February, 1852 http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/tfe.htm", st. 2 (1852)
Kontext: We love not this French God, the child of hell,
Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise;
But though we love kind Peace so well,
We dare not even by silence sanction lies.
It might be safe our censures to withdraw,
And yet, my Lords, not well; there is a higher law.
„The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon“
Quelle: Morte D'Arthur (1842), Lines 136-142
Kontext: The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur.
„Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters
Choric Song, st. 4
The Lotos-Eaters (1832)
Kontext: Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
„A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro’ and thro’,
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill’d with life anew.“
Nothing Will Die (1830)
Kontext: Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro’ eternity.
‘Tis the world’s winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro’ and thro’,
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill’d with life anew.
„She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mariana
"Mariana" (1830)
Kontext: 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.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'
„She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott
Pt. III, st. 5
The Lady of Shalott (1832)
Kontext: She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
„Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream
The Departure, st. 1
The Day-Dream (1842)
Kontext: And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.
„Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.“
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, buch Ulysses
Quelle: Ulysses (1842), l. 63-70
Kontext: It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
