En af den victorianske tids største poeter. Han gav allerede som dreng store løfter, og han skrev et større episk værk som 15 årig. I 1827 begyndte Tennyson på Cambridge, som han forlod uden afsluttet uddannelse i 1831. Han er kendt for sine idyller og skrev ofte digte om sagn fra kong Arthur. Få poeter har produceret anerkendte mesterværker indenfor så mange forskellige genrer som Tennyson.
A lie which is half truth is the blackest of lies
After it, follow it, Follow The Gleam.
All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.
And out of darkness came the hands that reach thro' nature, moulding men.
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
God's finger touched him and he slept.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.
Here at the quiet limit of the world.
I am a part of all that I have met.
I hold it true,what'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.
If thou shouldst never see my face again, pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.
In the long years liker they must grow; The man be more of woman, she of man.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.
Nature, red in tooth and claw.
O tell her, brief is life but love is long.
Ours not to reason why
Ours but to do and die.
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels.
The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.