04.11.2013, 18:10
EARTHLY FAME.
How fall Fame's pillars at the touch of Time !
How fade, like flowers, the memories of the dead !
How vast the grave that swallows up a clime !
How dim the light by ancient glory shed !
One generation's clay enwraps the next,
And dead men are the aliment of earth ;
' Passing away,' is Nature's funeral text,
Uttered coevous with Creation's birth.
I mourn not, care not, if my humble name,
With my frail body, perish in the tomb ;
It courts a heavenly, not an earthly fame,
That through eternity shall brightly bloom :
Write it within thy Book of Life, O Lord,
And, in ' the last great day,' a golden crown award !
How fall Fame's pillars at the touch of Time !
How fade, like flowers, the memories of the dead !
How vast the grave that swallows up a clime !
How dim the light by ancient glory shed !
One generation's clay enwraps the next,
And dead men are the aliment of earth ;
' Passing away,' is Nature's funeral text,
Uttered coevous with Creation's birth.
I mourn not, care not, if my humble name,
With my frail body, perish in the tomb ;
It courts a heavenly, not an earthly fame,
That through eternity shall brightly bloom :
Write it within thy Book of Life, O Lord,
And, in ' the last great day,' a golden crown award !