Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes
Change lays her hand not upon the truth.
We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, thou art noble and nude and antique.
But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit; And gathering thorns they shake the tree For words divide and rend, But silence is most noble till the end.
For words divide and rend
But silence is most noble till the end.
Change lays not her hand upon truth.
At the door of life by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.
For the crown of our life as it closes
Is 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 corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet
For a day.
And love grown bitter with treason, and laurel
Outlives not May.
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather.
Time stoops to no man's lure.