It is not seemly to be famous: <br />Celebrity does not exalt; <br />There is no need to hoard your writings <br />And to preserve them in a vault. <br /> <br />To give your all-this is creation, <br />And not-to deafen and eclipse. <br />How shameful, when you have no meaning, <br />To be on everybody's lips! <br /> <br />Try not to live as a pretender, <br />But so to manage your affairs <br />That you are loved by wide expanses, <br />And hear the call of future years. <br /> <br />Leave blanks in life, not in your papers, <br />And do not ever hesitate <br />To pencil out whole chunks, whole chapters <br />Of your existence, of your fate. <br /> <br />Into obscurity retiring <br />Try your development to hide, <br />As autumn mist on early mornings <br />Conceals the dreaming countryside. <br /> <br />Another, step by step, will follow <br />The living imprint of your feet; <br />But you yourself must not distinguish <br />Your victory from your defeat. <br /> <br />And never for a single moment <br />Betray your credo or pretend, <br />But be alive-this only matters- <br />Alive and burning to the end.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-is-not-seemly-to-be-famous/
