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.
Walter Savage Landor
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.
In just four lines, Landor looks back on his life with a sense of calm completeness. He tells us he never wasted energy on quarrels—no one was important enough to fight with. Instead, he gave his love to Nature and Art, the things that truly mattered to him.
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