Welladay! <br />Here I lay <br />You at rest--all worn away, <br />O my pencil, to the tip <br />Of our old companionship! <br /> <br />Memory <br />Sighs to see <br />What you are, and used to be, <br />Looking backward to the time <br />When you wrote your earliest rhyme!-- <br /> <br />When I sat <br />Filing at <br />Your first point, and dreaming that <br />Your initial song should be <br />Worthy of posterity. <br /> <br />With regret <br />I forget <br />If the song be living yet, <br />Yet remember, vaguely now, <br />It was honest, anyhow. <br /> <br />You have brought <br />Me a thought-- <br />Truer yet was never taught,-- <br />That the silent song is best, <br />And the unsung worthiest. <br /> <br />So if I, <br />When I die, <br />May as uncomplainingly <br />Drop aside as now you do, <br />Write of me, as I of you:-- <br /> <br />Here lies one <br />Who begun <br />Life a-singing, heard of none; <br />And he died, satisfied, <br />With his dead songs by his side.<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-worn-out-pencil/
