The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/What Is Glory? What Is Fame?
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;
A visioning that tempts the eye,
But mocks the touch—nonentity;
A rainbow, substanceless as bright,
Flitting for ever
O'er hill-top to more distant height,
Nearing us never;
A bubble, blown by fond conceit,
In very sooth itself to cheat;
The witch-fire of a frenzied brain;
A fortune, that to lose were gain;
A word of praise, perchance of blame;
The wreck of a, time-bandied name,—
Ay, This is Glory!—this is Fame!