Algernon Charles Swinburne
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which.
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.
Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things.
While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three.
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which.Collection: Body
Today will die tomorrow.Collection: Today
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.Collection: Spring
Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides.Collection: Fate
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.Collection: Broken
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.Collection: Dream
The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby's hands.Collection: Baby
Time stoops to no man's lure.Collection: Men
Let weakness learn meekness.Collection: Experience
Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.Collection: Hope
For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered isgrief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.Collection: Time
There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Queens
Fear that makes faith may break faith.Collection: Fear
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.Collection: Baby
In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part.Collection: Dream
His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Sweet
There is no safety-net to protect against attraction.Collection: Wise
His speech is a burning fire.Collection: Fire
At the door of life by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death.Collection: Life
I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide.Collection: Moving
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,/ All waters as the shore.Collection: Wind
The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty.Collection: Loyalty
I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.Collection: Sweet
My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment.Collection: Time
Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; love me no more, but love my love of thee.Collection: Broken Heart
For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end.Collection: Silence
There grows No herb of help to heal a coward heart.Collection: Heart
The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog.Collection: Tadpoles
Forget that I remember And dream that I forget.Collection: Dream
The beast faith lives on its own dung.Collection: Atheism
Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.Collection: Dark
Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath, and alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death,Of langours rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.Collection: Art
The sun is all about the world we see, the breath and strength of every spring.Collection: Spring
Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran .Collection: Time
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.Collection: Work
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.Collection: Mother
Stately, kindly, lordly friend Condescend Here to sit by me.Collection: Friendship
Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow.Collection: Sad