EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, a poem

LIFE laid upon his forehead a caress
     And, smiling, gave him for his birthright dower,
     Humor and judgment, passion, purpose, power,
And gifts of vision, pure and limitless:
Then—for she ever tempers man's success,
     Nursing the canker in Earth's fairest flower,—
     She added pain; and taught him, hour by hour,
To know that only blessèd which doth bless!

So, following the Gleam from early youth,
     He lent a strengthening hand, and gave his heart,
     And aided feet, less sure than his, to climb:
He sacrificed not others to his art,
     But worshiped beauty with unselfish truth,
     And lives, the well-belovèd of his time!

"Edmund Clarence Stedman" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (September 1902), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.