Quotes from Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

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.

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

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. To sleep for a season and hear no word Of true love's truth or of light love's art, Only the song of a secret bird.

Change lays not her hand upon truth.

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

There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea. In a land of sand and rain and gold There shone one woman, and none but she.

Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love's hand to-day.

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

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, Remembering thee.

Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

There is no safety-net to protect against attraction.

When I hear that a personal friend has fallen into matrimonial courses, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism — a holy sorrow, unmixed with anger.

When fate has allowed to any man more than one great gift, accident or necessity seems usually to contrive that one shall encumber and impede the other.

While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three.

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.

To say of shame - what is it? Of virtue - we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it's no longer sin.

Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; Love me no more, but love my love of thee.

Fear that makes faith may break faith.

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough.

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.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division make barren our lives.