Poems, now first collected/Byron  From Wikisource Jump to:
navigation, search Poems, now first collected  (1897)  Edmund
Clarence Stedman New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company pages
125-129   A hundred years, 't is writ,—O presage vain!—  Earth
wills her offspring life, ere one complete His term, and rest
from travail, and be fain  To lay him down in natural death and
sweet.  What of her child whose swift divining soul  With triple
fervor burns the torch apace, And in one radiant third compacts
the whole  Ethereal flame that lights him on his race?  Ay, what
of him who to the winds upheld  A star-like brand, with pride
and joy and tears, And lived in that fleet course from youth to
eld,  Count them who will, his century of years?  The Power that
arches heaven's orbway round  Gave to this planet's brood its
soul of fire, Its heart of passion,—and for life unbound  By
chain or creed the measureless desire;  Gave to one poet these,
and manifold  High thoughts, beyond our lesser mortal share,—
Gave dreams of be