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What Is Glory? What Is Fame?
What is Glory? What is Fame?
The echo of a long lost name;
A breath, an idle hour's brief talk;
The shadow of an arrant nought;
A flower that blossoms for a day,
Dying next morrow;
A stream that hurries on its way,
Singing of sorrow;—
The last drop of a bootless shower,
Shed on a sere and leafless bower;
A rose, stuck in a dead man's breast—
This is the World's fame at the best!
What is Fame? and what is Glory?
A dream—a jester's lying story,
To tickle fools withal, or be
A theme for second infancy;
A joke scrawled on an epitaph;
A grin at Death's own ghastly laugh;
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