The Landor Variations

On His Seventy-fifth Birthday
By 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.
 
  
With unfortunate typo in the first edition of Committed to Memory, Turtle Point Press:

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 stinks, and I am ready to depart.
 
 
Landor At Sea
By E.M. Forster
 
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
   Reason I loved, and, next to Reason, Doubt;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
   And put it out.

(by kind permission of The Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge and The Society of Authors as the E.M. Forster Estate)