Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909) was an English poet and prose writer, born in London, son of Admiral Swinburne. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, went to Florence and spent some time there. His first productions were plays, two of them tragedies, and "Poems and Ballads," his later "A Song of Italy," essay on "William Blake," and "Songs before Sunrise," instinct with pantheistic and republican ideas, besides "Studies in Song," "Studies in Prose and Poetry," &c. He ranks as the successor of Landor, of whom he is a great admirer, stands high both as a poet and a critic, and is a man of broad and generous sympathies. His admirers regard it as a reproach to his generation that due honour is not paid by it to his genius.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean, the world has grown

gray from the breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.
- Hymn to Proserpine

• Let us rise up and part; she will not know.

Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam.
- A Leave-taking

John Muir the naturalist

Nearby pages
Algernon Sidney, Algesiras, Algicide, Algiers, Algine