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| WHAT should a man desire to leave? | |
| A flawless work; a noble life: | |
| Some music harmoniz’d from strife, | |
| Some finish’d thing, ere the slack hands at eve | |
| Drop, should be his to leave. | 5 |
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| One gem of song, defying age; | |
| A hard-won fight; a well-work’d farm; | |
| A law no guile can twist to harm; | |
| Some tale, as our lost Thackeray’s bright, or sage | |
| As the just Hallam’s page. | 10 |
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| Or, in life’s homeliest, meanest spot, | |
| With temperate step from year to year | |
| To move within his little sphere, | |
| Leaving a pure name to be known, or not,— | |
| This is a true man’s lot. | 15 |
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| He dies: he leaves the deed or name, | |
| A gift forever to his land, | |
| In trust to Friendship’s prudent hand, | |
| Round ’gainst all adverse shocks to guard his fame, | |
| Or to the world proclaim. | 20 |
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| But the imperfect thing or thought,— | |
| The crudities and yeast of youth, | |
| The dubious doubt, the twilight truth, | |
| The work that for the passing day was wrought, | |
| The schemes that came to nought, | 25 |
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| The sketch half-way ’twixt verse and prose | |
| That mocks the finish’d picture true, | |
| The quarry whence the statue grew, | |
| The scaffolding ’neath which the palace rose, | |
| The vague abortive throes | 30 |
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| And fever-fits of joy or gloom:— | |
| In kind oblivion let them be! | |
| Nor has the dead worse foe than he | |
| Who rakes these sweepings of the artist’s room, | |
| And piles them on his tomb. | 35 |
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| Ah, ’t is but little that the best, | |
| Frail children of a fleeting hour, | |
| Can leave of perfect fruit or flower! | |
| Ah, let all else be graciously supprest | |
| When man lies down to rest! | 40 |
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