As today is the anniversary of the great Victorian poet's death, Tory Historian decided to post a quotation or two. Naturally enough, there will be no references to valleys of death or canons on various sides, as that poem is a little too well known even by people who have no idea of what it is really about. (Incidentally, the same battle saw the charge of the Heavy Brigade, which achieved its aim with the participants coming back more or less intact. No poems were written about that.)
Here are a few gems, randomly chosen:
He makes no friends who never made a foe.
There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.
We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Far it be from Tory Historian to suggest that these and others of his memorable lines could be studied with some profit by politicians nowadays.
Aficionados of the classic detective story will recall that Patricia Wentworth's formidable heroine, Miss Silver, was inordinately fond of quoting Lord Tennyson's apposite phrases.
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