’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson’s line comes from his long elegy In Memoriam A.H.H. (published 1850), written over many years after the sudden death in 1833 of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who was engaged to Tennyson’s sister. The poem meditates on grief, faith, doubt, and the meaning of love in the face of loss, and it became one of the defining Victorian works of mourning. The quoted couplet appears in the lyric section numbered XXVII, where Tennyson reflects on whether the pain of bereavement negates the value of having loved at all.

The couplet argues that love’s value is not cancelled by its impermanence or by the suffering that follows loss. Even when love ends through death or separation, the experience enlarges the self—morally, emotionally, and spiritually—more than a life insulated from attachment. In the setting of an elegy, the claim is also a defense against despair: grief testifies to love’s reality, and the wound becomes evidence of a meaningful bond. The line’s enduring appeal lies in its compressed consolation, turning private mourning into a general principle about risk, vulnerability, and human flourishing.

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.

1) “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
2) “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
3) “’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”