 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
[Thou wilt remark my fate, when I am dead]
Thou wilt remark my fate, when I am dead—Let not fools scoff above me, and proclaim,
That I had, vainly, struggled after fame,
'Till the good oil of my young life was shed;
And I became a mockery, and fell
Into the yellow leaf, before my time;—
A sacrifice, even in my earliest prime,
To that, which thinn'd the heav'ns, and peopled hell!
I feel my spirit fed upon my form,
As a disease within me, that still grows,
As I incline unto my last repose,
A vulturous, and all undying worm—
Let fools not mock me, when I am no more—
And yet—I ask no friendship, to deplore!
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |