Fame, slowly staggering, toils up hard ascents,
The summit reached, she beckons, proudly poised;
Life struggles out through inapparent vents;
Fame’s former glory is less loudly noised:
Death calls, and fame revives, then sudden dies,
Or, smouldering, stinks along the restless years;
Life’s various hoard, fed by such quick supplies,
Heeds not the fanes of bygone mirth or tears;
The years, that build the shadows, make them dim;
The busy world’s scarce conscious of itself;
Already toying on oblivion’s brim,
It prays for heirs to waste much useless pelf.
Who have not time to assure their own weak ways,
How should they pause o’er their ancestors’ praise?