A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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 | A Child of the People |  |
40
FAME.
Sigh not, sweet, that the fair days fail us;
Vex not love with a chance word fretful:
What though we, while the years avail us,
Win no name for the years forgetful,—
Though the world say its last of you
Ere the first of the roots creep nigh us,
What care we, so we live love through,
That the words of the world blow by us?
Vex not love with a chance word fretful:
What though we, while the years avail us,
Win no name for the years forgetful,—
Though the world say its last of you
Ere the first of the roots creep nigh us,
What care we, so we live love through,
That the words of the world blow by us?
What gat greater these famous lovers,
Save more sorrow to mar their laughter?
Dearth and dole for a life Time covers,—
Scant amends,—with a scant song after.
Though we faint from the world like dew,—
Hill-side haze that the sunrise raises,—
Why should we, so we live love through,
Greatly dread to die with the daisies?
Save more sorrow to mar their laughter?
Dearth and dole for a life Time covers,—
Scant amends,—with a scant song after.
Though we faint from the world like dew,—
Hill-side haze that the sunrise raises,—
Why should we, so we live love through,
Greatly dread to die with the daisies?
Can a breath of the flowers we lavish
Garland-wise on our graves blow through them?
Can our songs in the silence ravish
Souls that were life-long strangers to them?
Nay, thrice nay! to the dead their due,—
Silent sadness and swift forgetting;
Happy they to have lived love through:
Ours the solace whose suns are setting.
Garland-wise on our graves blow through them?
Can our songs in the silence ravish
Souls that were life-long strangers to them?
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Silent sadness and swift forgetting;
Happy they to have lived love through:
Ours the solace whose suns are setting.
All we, dreaming of praise undying,
Learn in a mad moon how praise passes.
Heart, last week world-heard, who art sighing
Mute songs now to your graveyard grasses,
In the world there are songs more new;—
In the world there are things would fret you
Of the hundred who read you through,
Half mistake you and half forget you.
Learn in a mad moon how praise passes.
Heart, last week world-heard, who art sighing
Mute songs now to your graveyard grasses,
In the world there are songs more new;—
In the world there are things would fret you
Of the hundred who read you through,
Half mistake you and half forget you.
Us in turn too will death resistless
Shut from summer and stars and singing;
Fold and fetter the hands laid listless
On the bosoms o'er-cold for clinging.
Half, for love, I could hold it true,—
Though praise pass us and fame forgetteth,
What if love that has lived life through
Rise, a sun, when, a star, it setteth!
Shut from summer and stars and singing;
Fold and fetter the hands laid listless
On the bosoms o'er-cold for clinging.
Half, for love, I could hold it true,—
Though praise pass us and fame forgetteth,
What if love that has lived life through
Rise, a sun, when, a star, it setteth!
We, whatever the world say of us,
Have within us what scorns the earthy.
Shall not we, who have gods to love us,
Be of better than worms held worthy?
Ay or nay, but for naught we sue,
If love last till the glad day goeth:
Most content to have lived love through;
Fame or not, in the end who knoweth?
Have within us what scorns the earthy.
Shall not we, who have gods to love us,
Be of better than worms held worthy?
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If love last till the glad day goeth:
Most content to have lived love through;
Fame or not, in the end who knoweth?
“Toil not for Fame, neither, for scorn of it,
Let slip the pregnant days;
But live beyond the sting of slanderous wit,
The steam of short-lived praise.”
So ran her comment; of the deathless love
No word her lips would tell,
But never lips with loveliest speech thereof
Filled silence half so well.
Let slip the pregnant days;
But live beyond the sting of slanderous wit,
The steam of short-lived praise.”
So ran her comment; of the deathless love
No word her lips would tell,
But never lips with loveliest speech thereof
Filled silence half so well.
| A Child of the People | |