 | Pocahontas, and other poems |  |
180
A NAME.
“Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad.”—
Genesis, xi., 4.
Genesis, xi., 4.
Make to thyself a name,
Not with a breath of clay,
Which, like the broken, hollow reed,
Doth sigh itself away;
Not with the fame that vaunts
The tyrant on his throne,
And hurls its stigma on the soul
That God vouchsafes to own.
Not with a breath of clay,
Which, like the broken, hollow reed,
Doth sigh itself away;
Not with the fame that vaunts
The tyrant on his throne,
And hurls its stigma on the soul
That God vouchsafes to own.
Make to thyself a name,
Nor such as wealth can weave,
Whose warp is but a thread of gold,
That dazzles to deceive;
Not with the tints of Love
Form out its letters fair,
That scroll within thy hand shall fade
Like him who placed it there.
Nor such as wealth can weave,
Whose warp is but a thread of gold,
That dazzles to deceive;
Not with the tints of Love
Form out its letters fair,
That scroll within thy hand shall fade
Like him who placed it there.
Make to thyself a name,
Not in the sculptured aisle,
The marble oft betrays its trust,
Like Egypt's lofty pile;
But ask of Him who quell'd
Of death, the victor-strife,
To write it on the blood-bought page
Of everlasting life.
Not in the sculptured aisle,
The marble oft betrays its trust,
Like Egypt's lofty pile;
But ask of Him who quell'd
Of death, the victor-strife,
To write it on the blood-bought page
Of everlasting life.
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