I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Notes
NOTES
Form:
abba
1.
First published anonymously in the volume with this title in
1850, though the 131 sections or separate poems that compose it were
written and rewritten from 1833 to the time of publication. Two of the
131 sections were added in later editions: LIX in 1851, and XXXIX in
1872. The poem is in memory of Tennyson's friend Arthur Henry Hallam,
son of the eminent historian. Hallam was engaged to marry Tennyson's
sister Emily, when he died suddenly of a stroke in Vienna on September
15, 1833, at the age of twenty-two. Although written without any plan
at first, the parts of the poem were finally arranged in a pattern to cover
the period of about three years following Hallam's death. Tennyson himself
insisted that it is "a poem, not a biography .... The different moods of sorrow
as in a drama are dramatically given, and my conviction that fear, doubts,
and suffering will find answer and relief only through Faith in a God of
Love. `I' is not always the author speaking of himself, but the voice of the
human race speaking through him."
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIIII: he died in 1833.
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Comments
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This is a beautiful poem. Everybody knows the "better to have loved and lost" part, but the whole poem is great! I think it's just beautiful!
~~~~~
Erika ~~~~~
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