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Imagination in poetry, as distinguished from mere fancy is the transfiguring of the real or actual to the ideal.

Alfred Austin

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Alfred Austin
Age: 78 †
Born: 1835
Born: May 30
Died: 1913
Died: June 2
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Ideal
Fancy
Ideals
Mere
Poetry
Imagination
Real
Distinguished
Actual

More quotes by Alfred Austin

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In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile.
Alfred Austin
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In my song you catch at times Note sweeter far than mine, And in the tangle of my rhymes Can scent the eglantine.
Alfred Austin
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There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.
Alfred Austin
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Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here.
Alfred Austin
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Falling stars are high examples sent To warn, not lure. Gross fancy says they are Substantial meteors but that is not so. They are the merest phantasies of Night, When she's asleep, and, dimly visited By past effects, she dreams of Lucifer Hurled out of Heaven.
Alfred Austin
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Where has thou been all the dumb winter days When neither sunlight was nor smile of flowers, Neither life, nor love, nor frolic, Only expanse melancholic, With never a note of thy exhilarating lays?
Alfred Austin
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No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.
Alfred Austin
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There is no gardening without humility
Alfred Austin
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Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.
Alfred Austin
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Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind.
Alfred Austin
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We are all alike, and we love to keep passion aglow at our feet, Like one that sitteth in shade and complacently smiles at the heat.
Alfred Austin
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My virgin sense of sound was steeped In the music of young streams And roses through the casement peeped, And scented all my dreams.
Alfred Austin
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We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.
Alfred Austin
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Though my verse but roam the air And murmur in the trees, You may discern a purpose there, As in music of the bees.
Alfred Austin
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If Nature built by rule and square, Than man what wiser would she be? What wins us is her careless care, And sweet unpunctuality.
Alfred Austin
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Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.
Alfred Austin
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So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.
Alfred Austin
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The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.
Alfred Austin
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Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.
Alfred Austin
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When held up to the window pane, What fixed my baby stare? The glory of the glittering rain, And newness everywhere.
Alfred Austin