FAME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 113, 26 June 1875, Page 6

FAME.

BY J. T.

I. The Orator spoke, and the crowd was hush'd, Men held their breath as the quick words rush'd ; Stern ej es grew tearful, cold hearts grew hot ; Though the hours sped by they heeded them not; And they swore not their fault if they liv'd not to see The tyrant dead and their country free. The Orator ceases — the curtain falls, The echoes die through the,tenantless walls — They fought in vain, for the orator's word Stay'd not the sweep of the tyrant's sword, And the riveted chain clanked on as before, , And the orator's words are remembered no more. Scanty his guerdon, scanty his fume, He lives in story, only a name. ii. The Poet sang, and the earth grew still, And he moulded men's hearts at his own free will ; And they ask'd his name that it might be enroll'd With the names of earth's greatest in letters of gold — And his pale cheek flush'd and his heart beat high, And he said — " Nor my name nor my song shall die." He paus'd, and earth's voices, silent so long. Grew sevenfold louder, and drown' d his song, As the tide of time thro' the centuries roll'd The rust ate in thro' the letters of gold ; And newer songs seem'd sweeter to men, And the Poet's songs are not heard again, Save by a few, with less heart than head, Who grope for his thoughts in a tongue that is dead. Scanty his guerdon, scanty his fame, He left in story scarce aught but a name. in. The Thinker sat pale in his lonely cell, And mus'd on the Thought he had shap'd so well ; And his keen eye looked through the coming years, And he saw thro' the haze of has happy tears His shapely thought thro' the world expand Till its impress was stamp'd on the sea and the land j And he thought to himself, 'mid his vision of fame — *' Surely the world will remember my name." And the Thinker died, and his Thought went forth To the east and the west, to the south and the north ; But talent such changes on genius rang That the world forgot from whose brain it Bprang; And men deem'd that the fruit of the thought of the sage Was the slow grown produce of many an age. Scanty his guerdon, scanty his fame, He left in story not even a name ! — The Irith Monthly.