And I, who, in vain sympathy,
These mournful words have said,
Not mine the hand that can bestow
The laurel on the dead:
I only know thy nameless fate
To me seems life's most desolate.
Methinks it is not much to die—
To die, and leave behind
A spirit in the hearts of men
A voice amid our kind;
When fame and death, in unison,
Have giv'n thousand lives for one.
Our thoughts, we live again in them,
Our nature's noblest part;
Our life in many a memory,
Our home in many a heart:
When not a lip that breathes our strain,
But calls us into life again.
No, give me some green laurel leaves
To float down memory's wave;
One tone remain of my wild songs,
To sanctify my grave;
And then but little should I care
How soon within that grave I were.
