August 6th is the birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born in Lincolnshire, England (1809).
Tennyson gave us some of the most familiar lines in English poetry, including "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" and "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."
His famous lyric poems include "Tears, idle tears" and "Crossing the Bar," but many consider Tennyson's masterpiece to be "In Memoriam A.H.H."
He started writing the elegy in 1833 after his close friend Arthur Hallam had a cerebral hemorrhage and died suddenly. The poem was controversial because it questioned the tenets of Christian faith. Tennyson wrote: "Who trusted God was love indeed / And love Creation's final law — / Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw / With ravine, shriek'd against his creed." It wasn't until 1850 that he published the poem, 17 years after Hallam's death.
That same year, he was appointed poet laureate of England, succeeding William Wordsworth. Tennyson would keep the position for 42 years, until his death in 1892, the longest that anyone ever held the post.
After the death of her husband, Albert, Queen Victoria was said to have kept a copy of Tennyson's elegy always within reach.