A Little Tennyson for Your Day.

Watching Penny Dreadful with the kiddo last night Ferdinand Lyle quoted Tennyson "It is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all." We've all heard the quote many many times, and it dawned on me I had never read the entire poem prompting me to google it.

This truth came borne with bier and pall,

I felt it, when I sorrow’d most,

’Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all–

O true in word, and tried in deed,

Demanding, so to bring relief

To this which is our common grief,

What kind of life is that I lead;

And whether trust in things above

Be dimm’d of sorrow, or sustain’d;

And whether love for him have drain’d

My capabilities of love;

Your words have virtue such as draws

A faithful answer from the breast,

Thro’ light reproaches, half exprest,

And loyal unto kindly laws.

My blood an even tenor kept,

Till on mine ear this message falls,

That in Vienna’s fatal walls

God’s finger touch’d him, and he slept.

The great Intelligences fair

That range above our mortal state,

In circle round the blessed gate,

Received and gave him welcome there;

And led him thro’ the blissful climes,

And show'd him in the fountain fresh

All knowledge that the sons of flesh

Shall gather in the cycled times.

But I remained, whose hopes were dim,

Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,

To wander on a darkened earth,

Where all things round me breathed of him.

O friendship, equal poised control,

O heart, with kindliest motion warm,

O sacred essence, other form,

O solemn ghost, O crowned soul!

Yet none could better know than I,

How much of act at human hands

The sense of human will demands

By which we dare to live or die.

Whatever way my days decline,

I felt and feel, tho’ left alone,

His being working in mine own,

The footsteps of his life in mine;

A life that all the Muses decked

With gifts of grace, that might express

All comprehensive tenderness,

All-subtilising intellect:

And so my passion hath not swerved

To works of weakness, but I find

An image comforting the mind,

And in my grief a strength reserved.

Likewise the imaginative woe,

That loved to handle spiritual strife,

Diffused the shock thro’ all my life,

But in the present broke the blow.

My pulses therefore beat again

For other friends that once I met;

Nor can it suit me to forget

The mighty hopes that make us men.

I woo your love: I count it crime

To mourn for any overmuch;

I, the divided half of such

A friendship as had master’d Time;

Which masters Time indeed, and is

Eternal, separate from fears:

The all-assuming months and years

Can take no part away from this:

But Summer on the steaming floods,

And Spring that swells the narrow brooks,

And Autumn, with a noise of rooks,

That gather in the waning woods,

And every pulse of wind and wave

Recalls, in change of light or gloom,

My old affection of the tomb,

And my prime passion in the grave:

My old affection of the tomb,

A part of stillness, yearns to speak:

‘Arise, and get thee forth and seek

A friendship for the years to come.

‘I watch thee from the quiet shore;

Thy spirit up to mine can reach;

But in dear words of human speech

We two communicate no more.’

And I, ‘Can clouds of nature stain

The starry clearness of the free?

How is it? Canst thou feel for me

Some painless sympathy with pain?’

And lightly does the whisper fall;

‘’Tis hard for thee to fathom this;

I triumph in conclusive bliss,

And that serene result of all.’

So hold I commerce with the dead;

Or so methinks the dead would say;

Or so shall grief with symbols play

And pining life be fancy-fed.

Now looking to some settled end,

That these things pass, and I shall prove

A meeting somewhere, love with love,

I crave your pardon, O my friend;

If not so fresh, with love as true,

I, clasping brother-hands aver

I could not, if I would, transfer

The whole I felt for him to you.

For which be they that hold apart

The promise of the golden hours?

First love, first friendship, equal powers,

That marry with the virgin heart.

Still mine, that cannot but deplore,

That beats within a lonely place,

That yet remembers his embrace,

But at his footstep leaps no more,

My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest

Quite in the love of what is gone,

But seeks to beat in time with one

That warms another living breast.

Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring,

Knowing the primrose yet is dear,

The primrose of the later year,

As not unlike to that of Spring.

I'm doing a little better these days, working has helped. Being around people when I wanted to crawl in a hole and die has helped. I've lost more than 40 pounds and I can see myself in the mirror again, I've aged some these last few months. He's aged more. I don't know what exactly the future brings, but after the past few months I'm sure I'm ready for some good things to come my way. My schedule changes every week so trying to get back into a routine has been a little difficult. Some days work is all I can manage, others I look forward to trying to figure out a routine again. One thing I have learned is I don't need to be on the computer all the time to make sales, but it does increase the frequency when I do come online and do a little something.  Thankfully sales have been fairly steady, little lulls here and there but enough to allow me to make so I don't go crazy. My muse allowed me to make a sweet simple pair of earrings the other day and I fully intended to make another to list but haven't found the time do so yet. At least they're planned that's more than I've done in awhile! 

Be kind to yourselves. Love one another

Oil next time!