55 Quotes by Alfred Austin

Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind.

Where has thou been all the dumb winter days When neither sunlight was nor smile of flowers, Neither life, nor love, nor frolic, Only expanse melancholic, With never a note of thy exhilarating lays?

In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile.

No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.

Falling stars are high examples sent To warn, not lure. Gross fancy says they are Substantial meteors; but that is not so. They are the merest phantasies of Night, When she's asleep, and, dimly visited By past effects, she dreams of Lucifer Hurled out of Heaven.

Perhaps a maiden's bashfulness is more A matron's lesson than our lips aver.

In my song you catch at times Note sweeter far than mine, And in the tangle of my rhymes Can scent the eglantine.

Never did form more fairy thread the dance Than she who scours the hills to find it flowers; Never did sweeter lips chained ears entrance Than hers that move, true to its striking hours; No hands so white e'er decked the warrior's lance, As those which tend its lamp as darkness lours; And never since dear Christ expired for man, Had holy shrine so fair a sacristan.

Imagination in poetry, as distinguished from mere fancy is the transfiguring of the real or actual to the ideal.