’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
But it is still more finely expressed to meet a particular personal mood. One must not think the world lost because a woman has been lost, he says, and such a love is not a thing for any man to be ashamed of, in spite of the fact that it has been disappointed. It was honourable, unselfish, not inspired by any passion or any folly, and the very brevity of the experience only serves to make it more precious. Observe the use of the words “shrive” and “assoiled.” These refer to the old religious custom of confession; to “shrive” signifies to forgive, to free from sin, as a priest is supposed to do, and “assoiled” means “purified.”
If this was a personal experience, it must have been an experience of advanced life. Elsewhere the story of a boyish love is told very prettily, under the title of “Two Fragments of Childhood.” This is the first fragment:
When these locks were yellow as gold,
When past days were easily told,
Well I knew the voice of the sea,
Once he spake as a friend to me.
Thunder-rollings carelessly heard,
Once that poor little heart they stirred,