On His Seventy-fifth Birthday
I strove with none; for none was worth my strife, Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life, It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
This poem is in the public domain.
Ah, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and sighs I consecrate to thee.