God gives us love! Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone: This is the curse of time.
Interpretation
Love is a gift that, while abundant, eventually leads to loss as time passes.
In this quote, Tennyson reflects on the nature of love as a divine gift that we are blessed to experience. However, he poignantly notes that love is temporary and, when it reaches its peak, often results in sorrow as the object of our affection is lost, leaving us to grapple with loneliness. This highlights the bittersweet essence of love, emphasizing both its beauty and its inevitable fragility due to the passage of time.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a memorial service to honor lost loved ones.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
But when it comes to being loved, she's first/That's how I know_x000D_ _x000D_ The first cut is the deepest.
Love is like a flower - you have to let it grow.
Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.
To the questioning glance of love, as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply; the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.
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