Canto XXVII

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.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XXVII