Oh fond attempt to give a deathless lot, <br />To names ignoble, born to be forgot! <br />In vain recorded in historic page, <br />They court the notice of a future age, <br />Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land <br />Drop one by one from fame's neglecting hand, <br />Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall, <br />And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all. <br />So when a child, as playful children use, <br />Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, <br />The flame extinct, he views the roving fire, <br />There goes my lady, and there goes the squire; <br />There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark, <br />And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.<br /><br />William Cowper<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-observing-some-names-of-little-note-recorded-in-the-biographia-britannica/
