From Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose". Perhaps this part "Yet love is better than life" is originally from Psalms 63:3. Understanding this line requires a reading of the whole story; to paraphrase, the bird loves the boy but the boy loves a girl; the bird admires the boy's love for the girl and "cries" this line. The bird says: "Yet love is better than life" = how wonderful life is, but love is even better. "what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?" The bird knows it is not suitable to love a boy. It will sacrifice itself to make the boy happy. Note that the Nightingale is referred throughout as "she". A depressing story, I must say, if there ever was one.