The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)

by Dan Simmons

Silenus understands that the pain has been with him since birth—the universe’s gift to a poet.

“To be a poet, I realized, a true poet, was to become the Avatar of humanity incarnate; to accept the mantle of poet is to carry the cross of the Son of Man, to suffer the birth pangs of the Soul-Mother of Humanity.