Quotes by Algernon Charles Swinburne

“For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit there of dust;No thorns go as deep as the rose's,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into cor...”

“Today will die tomorrow.”

“From too much love of livingFrom hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds...”

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

“Before the beginning of yearsThere came to the making of manTime, with a gift of tears;Grief, with a glass that ran;Pleasure, with pain for leaven;Summer, with flowers that fell;Remembrance, fallen...”

“Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.”

“I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.”

“Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet, O love, to lay down fear at loves fair feet; Shall not some fiery memory of his breath Lie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death? Yet leave me not; ...”

“For till the thunder and trumpet be,Soul may divide from body, but not weOne from another”

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

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

“Villon our sad bad glad mad brother's name.”

“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 riv...”

“Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet, O love, to lay down fear at love’s fair feet; Shall not some fiery memory of his breath Lie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death? Yet leave me not;...”

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

“Villon our sad bad glad mad brother's name.”

“Rhyme is the native condition of lyric verse in English; a rhymeless lyric is a maimed thing.”

“I can truly say with Shelley I have been fortunate in friendships: that I have been no less fortunate in my enemies than in my friends.”

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

“A crown and justice? Night and day Shall first be yoked together.”