Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1809–1892 · English Poet Laureate

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland for most of Queen Victoria’s reign and the most popular poet of the Victorian era. In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850), a sequence of 131 short cantos written over seventeen years, mourns his friend Arthur Henry Hallam and helped secure his appointment as Laureate that same year. He also gave the language “Theirs not to reason why” and “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

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

Verified

Did they really say it?

Thought Alfred, Lord Tennyson said something else?

Type a quote you think Alfred, Lord Tennyson said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.