Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. "Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." The proverbial saying 'It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' has a straightforward literal meaning, which means the pain of lost love is worth bearing to experience the joy of love. This quotation was penned by the most famous English poet of the Victorian era, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92). Canto 27 of In Memoriam (1850): 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. Tennyson completed the poem in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet’s beloved Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly in 1839 0f a cerebral hemorrhage when he was in Vienna. Deeply grieved, Tennyson spent ten years in his Lincolnshire home grieving and composing this requiem for his friend. Like many proverbs, this sentiment has an opposite: "What you never had, you'll never miss". The example often given is blindness: the argument is that someone who has never known what it is to have sight cannot miss the gift of sight, at least not in the way we commonly understand "missing" something. Few would accept the wisdom of the proverb unequivocally: "It is better to see and lose your sight than not to see". Such a claim may be debatable. This seems to be different because of our conception of "love": as something we give to others, something beyond ourselves, something that enriches our lives and personalities, having to put others before ourselves, or at least (can say, in the case of true love) on a par with ourselves. Never know that the soul of love is smaller and more humble than the person who has loved, even if the object of love has been taken away from us. In other words, I think Tennyson's words don't just tell about the fond memories of being in love: they tell about deeper truths about loving and loving another person, and what it brings to our lived experience and our knowledge The benefits come to ourselves.