Her Reproach
Con the dead page as ’twere live love: press on!Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee;Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wanTo biting blasts that are intent on me.
But if thy object Fame’s far summits be,Whose inclines many a skeleton o’erliesThat missed both dream and substance, stop and seeHow absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!
It surely is far sweeter and more wiseTo water love, than toil to leave anonA name whose glory-gleam will but adviseInvidious minds to quench it with their own,
And over which the kindliest will but stayA moment, musing, “He, too, had his day!”
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