Sonnets and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

How brief our dates! how soon Death apprehends
The sinner Life, and claps us in our tombs,
While Fame, if granted, but short space illumes
A name, ere, shining, its own self it spends!
But life has other measures, other ends
Than individual merely; it assumes
Ampler proportions than these narrow rooms,
And infinite in depth and breadth extends
For him who recognizes that each deed,
The slightest, has results that go to build
The future, be it for Man's good or ill.
Deeds born have issue endless, that no greed
Of Time can touch, till Time's course be fulfill'd;
And, dying, by his deeds man liveth still.

T.D.I.