If I should die, to-day, <br />To-morrow, maybe, the world would see <br />Would waken from sleep, and say, <br />"Why here was talent! why here was worth! <br />Why here was a luminous light o' the earth. <br />A soul as free <br />As the winds of the sea: <br />To whom was given <br />A dower of heaven. <br />And fame, and name, and glory belongs <br />To this dead singer of living songs. <br />Bring hither a wreath, for the bride of death!" <br />And so they would praise me, and so they would raise me <br />Mayhap, a column, high over the bed <br />Where I should be lying, all cold and dead. <br /> <br />But I am a living poet! <br />Walking abroad in the sunlight of God, <br />Not lying asleep, where the clay worms creep, <br />And the cold world will not show it, <br />E'en when it sees that my song should please; <br />But sneering says: "Avaunt, with thy lays <br />Do not sing them, and do not bring them <br />Into this rustling, bustling life. <br />We have no time, for a jingling rhyme, <br />In this scene of hurrying, worrying strife." <br />And so I say, there is but one way <br />To win me a name, and bring me fame. <br />And that is, to die, and be buried low, <br />When the world would praise me, an hour or so.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fame/
