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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Stanzas

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

VII. Love’s Power

Stanzas

Lord Byron (1788–1824)

Written on the Road between Florence and Pisa

OH, talk not to me of a name great in story;

The days of our youth are the days of our glory,

And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty

Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

’T is but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.

Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!

What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O, Fame! if I e’er took delight in thy praises,

’T was less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases

Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover

She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;

Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;

When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,

I knew it was love and I felt it was glory.