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[A great man dies, or whom the world calls great]
“Nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit.”
—Horace, Epist. xvii.
—Horace, Epist. xvii.
A great man dies, or whom the world calls great
—And, I've observed, the world will scarce allow
One leaf of laurel to your living brow
Though it grows lavish when you lie in state:
This for your comfort,—well, he's dead! and, straight,
A kite sits on the shroud; but whence or how
The carrion came you cannot guess; and now
It claims with yellow beak and claw its bait.
Faugh! 'Tis enough to make the dead upstart,
To be so near a living grave, and smell it!
Happy the man who takes the final dart
And drops among the grass with none to tell it,
Who quietly through life has done his part,
And, to quote Horace, moriens fefellit!
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