I
envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To
whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor,
what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor
any want-begotten rest.
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.