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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAME by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY

First Line: GREAT THOUGHTS HAD SWELLED MY BREAST SINCE MORNING LIGHT
Last Line: THE LIGHT OF SOULS WHO DIED WITHOUT A NAME.
Subject(s): FAME; REPUTATION;
GREAT thoughts had swelled my breast since morning light, --
Of one who, vibrating the ether, spake;
And one whose ray abolished the opaque;
Sailors, who drove from either Pole the night;
Aerial Chavez o'er the Alpine height
Icarian borne, the eagle in his wake;
The twain whose love unveiled the radium flake;
And him who dragged the pestilence to light.

And when the long day drew to evening's close,
And on heaven's face the eternal beauty came,
So in my memory gloriously arose
The starry universe of human fame;
And through the midst thereof uncounted glows
The light of souls who died without a name.



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