This is the patent-age of new inventions   For killing bodies, and for saving souls, All propagated with the best intentions;   Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern, by which coals Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,   Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles, Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "This is the patent-age of new inventions   For killing bodies, and for saving souls, All propagated with the best intentions;   Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern, by which coals Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,   Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles, Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo." in the context of "Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I" to mean that wisdom is timeless.