Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate
" Love and Duty http://www.readbookonline.net/read/4310/14259/", l. 1- 21 (1842) <br class="br">Context: Of love that never found his earthly close,<br>What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?<br>Or all the same as if he had not been?<br>Not so. Shall Error in the round of time<br>Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout<br>For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself<br>Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law<br>System and empire? Sin itself be found<br>The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?<br>And only he, this wonder, dead, become<br>Mere highway dust? or year by year alone<br>Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,<br>Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!<br>If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,<br>Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,<br>The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,<br>The long mechanic pacings to and fro,<br>The set gray life, and apathetic end.<br>But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?<br>O three times less unworthy! likewise thou<br>Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
