Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes

Algernon Charles Swinburne was a British poet during the Victorian period. He was criticized for some of the more sexually charged and controversial passages in his poetry. Oscar Wilde once called him "a braggart in matters of vice." Nonetheless, he is known as one of the great Victorian poets. Read these quotes from Algernon Charles Swinburne.

• "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."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Baby's Death"
  
  
"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."
- Algernon Charles Swinburne, "An Interlude"


• "But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit;
  And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root;
  For words divide and rend,
  But silence is most noble till the end."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Atalanta"
  
  
• "Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
  Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
  One shelter where our spirits fain would be
  Death, if thou wilt?"
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Dialogue"
  
  
• "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."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Flower Piece by Fanten"
  
  
• "If love were what the rose is,
  And I were like the leaf,
  Our lives would grow together
  In sad or singing weather."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Match"
  
  
• "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."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Ballad of Dreamland--Envoi"
  
  
• "Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron
  Shall a nation be moulded to last."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Word for the Country"
  
  
• "O tender time that love thinks long to see,
  Sweet foot of Spring that with her footfall sows
  Late snow-like flowery leavings of the snows,
  Be not too long irresolute to be;
  O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?"
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Vision of Spring in Winter"
  
  
• "There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne
  
  
• "To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne
  
  
• "White rose in red rose-garden
  Is not so white;
  Snowdrops, that plead for pardon
  And pine for fright
  Because the hard East blows
  Over their maiden vows,
  Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright."
  - Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Before the Mirror"