Top 80 Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

2. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

4. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

8. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

9. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

10. “Love is more cruel than lust.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

11. “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

12. “Today will die tomorrow.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

13. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

14. “Marvellous mercies and infinite love.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

15. “Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

16. “In hawthorn-time the heart grows light.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

17. “The sun is all about the world we see, the breath and strength of every spring.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

18. “The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

19. “Time stoops to no man’s lure.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

20. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

21. “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

22. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

23. “His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

24. “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...”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

26. “We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man’s lure.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

27. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

28. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

29. “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

30. “His speech is a burning fire.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

31. “Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire...”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

32. “Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

35. “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

36. “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.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

37. “Change lays her hand not upon the truth.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

38. “The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

39. “The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby’s hands.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

40. “Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

43. “Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

44. “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

45. “There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

46. “Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded at last.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

47. “There is no safety-net to protect against attraction.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

— Algernon Charles Swinburne

50. “For no man under the sky lives twice.”

— Algernon Charles Swinburne