Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on! <br />Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee; <br />Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan <br />To biting blasts that are intent on me. <br /> <br />But if thy object Fame's far summits be, <br />Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies <br />That missed both dream and substance, stop and see <br />How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes! <br /> <br />It surely is far sweeter and more wise <br />To water love, than toil to leave anon <br />A name whose glory-gleam will but advise <br />Invidious minds to quench it with their own, <br /> <br />And over which the kindliest will but stay <br />A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day!"<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/her-reproach/
