Fear and Eliminating It by Taking Risk

 

Grand Canyon National Park Arizona



The following poem, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), is from In Memoriam A.H.H. 27.  Tennyson was an English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry and succeeded William Wordsworth Longfellow as Poet Laureate in 1850.

Considered a risk taking man, Tennyson promoted the notion of , having a mind of ones  own.

                      *

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 feet it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

                     *

The poet reminds us that it is far better
to take the risk, to face the fear and
do it anyway.
And if you lose, at least you will have loved.