Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ６： Ｉｎｔｒｉｇｕｉｔｙ Ｏｆ Ｌｏｖｅ

Is it better to have loved and lost, or to never have loved at all ?


「　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. 　」

- In Memoriam, Stanza XXVII, by Alfred Lord Tennyson