Earthly Glory Ageth and Seareth²
A Crowded Hour of Glorious Life
Is Worth: an Age Without a Name³
Has not my Verse Extoll’d thy Name
And with it Imp’d the Wings of Fame?⁴
A Wretch, concentrated all in Self, Living,
Forfeits Fair Renown – and Doubly Dying,
Goes down to the vile Dust, from whence he
Sprung – Unwept, Unhonoured, and Unsung⁵
The Tide catches me at my Pastime – Writing
Down my Foolish Name too near upon the Sea⁶
Fame of Myself, to Justify, all other plaudit be
Superfluous – an Incense Beyond Necessity⁷
Can Storied Urn or Animated Bust back to
Its mansion call the fleeting Breath? – Can
Honour’s voice provoke the silent Dust or
Flatt’ry sooth the dull cold ear of Death?⁸
Glory is like a Circle in the Water which
Never ceaseth to Enlarge itself – till by
Broad spreading it Disperse to Nought⁹
What about you’s Small? Not Legend,
Not Stature – real talk: just Lifespan¹⁰
¹ Edgar Allan Poe, Landor’s Cottage
² The Seafarer tr. Ezra Pound
³ Thomas Osbert Mordaunt, The Call
⁴ Thomas Carew, Ingrateful Beauty Threatened
⁵ Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
⁷ Emily Dickinson, Fame of Myself
⁸ Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard
⁹ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 1
¹⁰ Chinaka Hodge, Small Poems for Big