Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (1809-1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language. Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplace, including: "Nature, red in tooth and claw," "'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." He is the second most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare