It is the 200th Anniversary

of the heroic death of George Gordon,
Lord Byron, whose Childe Harold declares:

      I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
      I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d
      To its idolatries a patient knee...

and farther on:

      I have not loved the world, nor the world me,
      —But let us part fair foes;

Which contrasts nicely with the Biblical First Epistle of John, Chapter 2:

     Do not love the world or anything in the world.
     For those who love the world do not have love for the Father.
     For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh,
     the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life —
     is not from the Father but from the world.