'Tis Better To Have Loved And Lost (died on this day 6 October 1892) #shorts #quotes #history

Although Albert, Prince Consort, was largely responsible for Alfred, Lord Tennyson's appointment as Poet Laureate, Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, writing in her diary that she was "much soothed & pleased" by reading "In Memoriam A.H.H." after Albert's death. Tennyson wrote the elegy for his Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the tender age of twenty-two. After they first met in April 1862, Victoria wrote in her diary that Tennyson was "very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with a fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, oddly dressed, but there is no affectation about him." More two decades later, in August 1883, they would be meet again, when the Queen chanced to tell him what a comfort his poetry had been to her.

"I sometimes hold it half a sin to put in words the grief I feel;
for words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within."

"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."
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#alfredlordtennyson #poetry #queenvictoria #englishliterature #literature #tragedy #grief #sorrow #mourn #pain #depression #loneliness #romanticpoetry #quotes