What's this of death, from you who never will die? Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by? I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PURPLE COW by FRANK GELETT BURGESS THE KNIGHT'S TOMB by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO A HIGHLAND GIRL; AT INVERSNAID, UPON LOCH LOMOND by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES by ALEXANDER ANDERSON APRIL by OBADIAH CYRUS AURINGER STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY by BERNARD BARTON TEMPORALL SUCCESS by JOSEPH BEAUMONT THE KING OF YVETOT by PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER THE 'NAME UNKNOWN' (IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK) by THOMAS CAMPBELL |