| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | III. To Fame | | By George Powell Thomas |
| | | O FAME! what art thou?—Who can know, alas! | |
| His claim to any share in thee or thine, | |
| Till he has passed that dim and awful line, | |
| Which no man ever passed or e’er shall pass, | |
| Prizing thy gifts! Rare beings still amass | 5 |
| Treasures that after-ages count divine; | |
| Yet ere they pass from earth, thou giv’st no sign | |
| That they in memory shall outlive the mass. | |
| How oft, in life, they pine for very bread, | |
| While wordy critics smirch their lays with blots; | 10 |
| How oft above each unremembered head, | |
| Year after year, the dock or hemlock rots; | |
| And then thou nam’st their love, or woe, or mirth; | |
| And towns that let them die boast that they gave them birth. | | | | |
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