The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 7/My Epitaph

by George Gordon Byron

MY EPITAPH.^[1]

Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my lamp in strongly strove;
But Romanelli was so stout,
He beat all three—and blew it out.

October, 1810.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 240.]

1. ["The English Consul ... forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph—take it."—Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 298.]