James Kenneth Stephen

English poet (1859–1892); tutor to Prince Albert Victor

James Kenneth Stephen (25 February 18593 February 1892) was an English poet, and tutor to Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

James Kenneth Stephen

Quotes

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  • To see Good Tennis! What divine joy
    Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ?
    Let other people play at other things;
    The King of Games is still the Game of Kings.
    • Parker's Piece.
  • Will there never come a season
    Which shall rid us from the curse?
    Of a prose which knows no reason
    And an unmelodious verse:
    When the world shall cease to wonder
    At the genius of an Ass,
    And a boy's eccentric blunder
    Shall not bring success to pass:

    When mankind shall be delivered
    From the clash of magazines,
    And the inkstand shall be shivered
    Into countless smithereens:
    When there stands a muzzled stripling,
    Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
    When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
    And the Haggards Ride no more.

    • To R. K.
  • I do not want to see that girl again:
    I did not like her: and I should not mind
    If she were done away with, killed, or ploughed.
    She did not seem to serve a useful end :
    And certainly she was not beautiful.
    • In the Backs.
  • There were two good fellows I used to know.
    --How distant it all appears!
    We played together in football weather,
    And messed together for years:
    Now one of them's wed, and the other's dead
    So long that he's hardly missed
    Save by us, who messed with him years ago:
    But we're all in the old School List.
    • The Old School List.
  • Republic of the West,
    Enlightened, free, sublime,
    Unquestionably best
    Production of our time.
    • England and America.
  • In short, if your body or mind
    Or your soul or your purse come to grief,
    You need only get drunk, and you'll find
    Complete and immediate relief.
    • Drinking Song.
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