Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “’Tis better to have loved and lost”: 3 poems from “In Memoriam”

7
Dark house, by which once more I stand
  		Here in the long unlovely street,
  		Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp’d no more – 		
  		Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
  		And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
  		The noise of life begins again,			
  		And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

27
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.

130
Thy voice is on the rolling air;
  		I hear thee where the waters run;
  		Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.

What art thou then? I cannot guess;		
  		But tho’ I seem in star and flower
  		To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less:

My love involves the love before;
  		My love is vaster passion now;		
  		Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
  		I have thee still, and I rejoice;
  		I prosper, circled with thy voice;		
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892 – poems from the one-volume In Memoriam, and The Major Works