Thank you for the quote. Here is the verse in full…

In Memoriam AHH, Tennyson

  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.

tennyson had another immortal line that I reach for in times like this: "But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still"

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45318/break-break-bre...

I keep coming back to In Memoriam AHH way more often than I would expect; it’s really a great piece of poetry.

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