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Ella Wheeler Wilcox - Fame
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If I should die, to-day, 
To-morrow, maybe, the world would see  
Would waken from sleep, and say, 
"Why here was talent! why here was worth! 
Why here was a luminous light o` the earth. 
                A soul as free 
                As the winds of the sea: 
                To whom was given 
                A dower of heaven. 
And fame, and name, and glory belongs 
To this dead singer of living songs. 
Bring hither a wreath, for the bride of death!" 
And so they would praise me, and so they would raise me 
   Mayhap, a column, high over the bed 
   Where I should be lying, all cold and dead.

     But I am a living poet! 
     Walking abroad in the sunlight of God, 
     Not lying asleep, where the clay worms creep, 
         And the cold world will not show it, 
E`en when it sees that my song should please; 
But sneering says:  "Avaunt, with thy lays 
Do not sing them, and do not bring them 
    Into this rustling, bustling life. 
We have no time, for a jingling rhyme, 
In this scene of hurrying, worrying strife." 
    And so I say, there is but one way 
To win me a name, and bring me fame. 
And that is, to die, and be buried low, 
When the world would praise me, an hour or so.
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