The world will still go on the very same
When the last feeble echo of my name
Has died from out men’s listless hearts and ears
These many years.
Its tides will roll, its suns will rise and set,
When mine, through twilight portals of regret,
Has passed to quench its pallid, parting light
In rayless night,
While o’er my place oblivion’s tide will sweep
To whelm my deeds in silence dark and deep,
The triumphs and the failures, ill and good,
Beneath its flood.
Then other, abler men will serve the Art
I strove to serve with singleness of heart;
Will wear her thorned laurels on the brow,
As I do now.
I shall not care to ask whose fame is first,
Or feel the fever of that burning thirst
To win her warmest smile, nor count the cost
Whate’er be lost.
As I have striven, they will strive to rise
To hopeless heights, where that elusive prize,
The unattainable ideal, gleams
Through waking dreams.
But I shall sleep, a sleep secure, profound,
Beyond the reach of blame, or plaudits’ sound;
And who stands high, who low, I shall not know:
’Tis better so.
For what the gain of all my toilsome years,
Of all my ceaseless struggles, secret tears?
My best, more brief than frailest summer flower,
Dies with the hour.
My most enduring triumphs swifter pass
Than fairy frost-wreaths from the window glass:
The master but of moments may not claim
A deathless name.
Mine but the task to lift, a little space,
The mystic veil from beauty’s radiant face
That other men may joy thereon to see,
Forgetting me.
Not mine the genius to create the forms
Which stand serenely strong, thro’ suns and storms,
While passing ages praise that power sublime
Defying time.
Mine but the transient service of a day,
Scant praise, too ready blame, and meager pay:
No matter, though with hunger at the heart
I did my part.
I dare not call my labor all in vain,
If I but voice anew one lofty strain:
The faithful echo of a noble thought
With good is fraught.
For some it cheers upon life’s weary road,
And some hearts lightens of their bitter load,
Which might have missed the message in the din
Of strife and sin.
My lavished life-blood warmed and woke again
The still, pale children of another’s brain,
Brimmed full the forms which else were cold,
Tho’ fair of mold.
And thro’ their lips my spirit spoke to men
Of higher hopes, of courage under pain,
Of worthy aspirations, fearless flight
To reach the light.
Then, soul of mine, content thee with thy fate,
Though noble niche of fame and guerdon great
Be not for thee: thy modest task was sweet
At beauty’s feet.
The Artist passes like a swift-blown breeze,
Or vapors floating up from summer seas;
But Art endures as long as life and love:
For her I strove.