I Envy Not...

William Blake "The Meeting of a Family in Heaven"

From the poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Lord Alfred Tennyson. One major themes of the poem is the the consideration of the question: how is the Immortality of the Soul to be found in the single life, and how can we trust that Love is "Creation`s final law"? It is a meditation on the search for hope after great loss.
It moves from grief and pain to recognition of immortality.

Section XXVII

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

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.

CXXVI

Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.

Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, tho' as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompass'd by his faithful guard,

And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.