Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Love is the only Gold

It's the birthday of the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1809. He's one of the most popular poets in the English language, and was one of the last poets to sell as many books as a novelist. At his peak, he was one of the most famous people in England - possibly behind only Queen Victoria and the prime minister. His house was a tourist attraction, and his fans lined up outside at all hours of the day and night. He was made a lord in 1884, when he was 75, and he was the only member of the House of Lords to be there solely on the basis of literary merit.

Tennyson gave us some of the most familiar lines in English poetry, including

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"

"Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die."

“I sometimes find it half a sin,
To put to words the grief I feel,
For words like nature,half reveal,
and half conceal the soul within,”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

"I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair."

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

"A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies."

His poems are full of concentrated lines and phrases that linger in the mind because of their shape, their sound, their mouthability. They ask to be read and then re-read," explains Douglas-Fairhurst.

"I am a part of all that I have met."

"Better not be at all than not be noble."

"No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself."

Often he composed individual lines before working out where to fit them into a poem, and just as he sometimes treated these lines like pieces of lego he could build up into bigger blocks of writing," according to Douglas-Fairhurst.

"Who are wise in love, love most, say least."

In Merlin and Viviene, Tennyson tells the passionate love story of a woman seducing a man.

In this particular line of the poem, Tennyson suggests that someone who is in love should show love, not just vocalise their admiration.

"Nor is it wiser to weep a true occasion lost, but trim our sails, and let old bygones be."