The poem
Had I but lived a hundred years ago I might have gone, as I have gone this year, By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know, And Time have placed his finger on me there:
"You see that man?" -- I might have looked, and said, "O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head. So commonplace a youth calls not my thought."
"You see that man?" -- "Why yes; I told you; yes: Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue; And as the evening light scants less and less He looks up at a star, as many do."
"You see that man?" -- "Nay, leave me!" then I plead, "I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea, And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed: I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!"
"Good. That man goes to Rome -- to death, despair; And no one notes him now but you and I: A hundred years, and the world will follow him there, And bend with reverence where his ashes lie."