Without Life's toil to win Life's earthly prize <br />What was thy mystery, oh, early Dead? <br />The careless world but counted thy young head <br />Among the multifarious heads that rise <br />And sink, forgot. For thee, no watching eyes <br />Starred darkness; no torch led thee to the bed <br />Of clay. Yet (if the Apostle justly said <br />Of all oblation) who or lives or dies <br />So well as to achieve a fairer fame <br />Than henceforth should be thine, oh, unknown youth, <br />Since on your votive marble, for once, Truth <br />Indites an Epitaph, and, 'neath thy name, <br />Transcends all laudatory verse in one, <br />'To him John Hunter raised this tributary stone.'<br /><br />Sydney Thompson Dobell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-james-h/
