OF FAME.

BLOW the trumpet, spread the wing, fling thy scroll upon the sky,
Rouse the slumbering world, O Fame, and fill the sphere with echo:
-Beneath thy blast they wake, and murmurs come hoarsely on the wind,
And flashing eyes and bristling hands proclaim they hear thy message;
Rolling and surging as a sea, that upturned flood of faces
Hasteneth with its million tongues to spread the wondrous tale;
The hum of added voices groweth to the roaring of a cataract,
And rapidly from wave to wave is tossed that exaggerated story,
Until those stunning clamours, gradually diluted in the distance,
Sink ashamed, and shrink afraid of noise, and die away.
Then brooding Silence, forth from his hollow caverns,

Cloaked and cowled, and gliding along, a cold and stealthy shadow,
Once more is mingled with the multitude, whispering as he walketh,
And hushing all their eager ears to hear some newer Fame.

So all is still again; but nothing of the past hath been forgotten;
A stirring recollection of the trumpet ringeth in the hearts of men:
And each one, either envious or admiring, hath wished the chance were
To fill as thus the startled world with fame, or fear, or wonder.
This lit thy torch of sacrilege, Ephesian Eratostratus ;*
This dug thy living grave, Pythagoras, the traveller from Hades;
For this dived Empedocles into Etna's fiery whirlpool;

[his,

For this conquerors, regicides, and rebels, have dared their perilous crimes.
In all men, from the monarch to the menial, lurketh lust of fame;
The savage and the sage alike regard their labours proudly:
Yea, in death, the glazing eye is illumined by the hope of reputation,
And the stricken warrior is glad, that his wounds are salved with glory.

* Eratostratus fired the temple of Diana at Ephesus, solely to make himself a name; the incendiary certainly succeeded, for he has come down to our times famous (if in no other way) at least for his criminal and foolish love of notoriety. Pythagoras induced the vulgar to believe in his supernatural qualifications, by immuring himself in a cavernous pit for months, whence returning with a ghastly aspect, he gave out that he had been a visiter in Hades. As for Empedocles, few cannot have heard that he leaped into Ætna to make the world imagine that he had vanished from its surface as a god: unluckily, however, the volcano disgorged one of the philosopher's sandals, and proved at once the manner of his death and the quality of his mind; ex pede Herculem.

FOR fame is a sweet self-homage, an offering grateful to the idol,
A spiritual nectar for the spiritual thirst, a mental food for mind,
A pregnant evidence to all of an after immaterial existence,
A proof that soul is scathless, when its dwelling is dissolved.

And the manifold pleasures of fame are sought by the guilty and the good;
Pleasures, various in kind, and spiced to every palate;

The thoughtful, loveth fame as an earnest of better immortality;
The industrious and deserving, as a symbol of just appreciation;

The selfish, as a promise of advancement, at least to a man's own kin, And common minds, as a flattering fact that men have been told of their existence.

THERE is a blameless love of fame, springing from desire of justice, When a man hath featly won and fairly claimed his honours: [merit, And then fame cometh as encouragement to the inward consciousness of Gladdening by the kindliness and thanks wherewithal his labours are But there is a sordid imitation, a feverish thirst for notoriety, [rewarded. Waiting upon vanity and sloth, and utterly regardless of deserving; And then fame cometh as a curse; the fire-damp is gathered in the mine; The soul is swelled with poisonous air, and a spark of temptation shall explode it.

IDLE causes, noised awhile, shall yield most active consequents,
And therefore it were ill upon occasion to scorn the voice of rumour.
Ye have seen the chemist in his art mingle invisible gases;
And, lo! the product is a substance, a heavy, dark precipitate;
Even so fame, hurtling on the quiet with many meeting tongues,
Can out of nothing bring forth fruits, and blossom on a nourishment of air.
For many have earned honour, and thereby rank and riches,
From false and fleeting tales-some casual, mere mistake;

And many have been wrecked upon disgrace, and have struggled with poverty and scorn,

From envious hints and ill reports-the slanders cast on innocence.
Whom may not scandal hit? those shafts are shot at a venture;
Who standeth not in danger of suspicion? that net hath caught the noblest.
Cæsar's wife was spotless, but a martyr to false fame ;*

"Casar's wife."] Pompeia, third wife of Julius Cæsar, and divorced from him, according to Plutarch, solely because "he would have the chastity of Cæsar's wife free even from suspicion."

And Rumor, in temporary things, is gigantic as a ruin or a remedy:
Many poor and many rich have testified its popular omnipotence,
And many a panic-stricken army have perished with the host of the
Assyrians.

NEVERTHELESS, if opportunity be nought, let a man bide his time;

So the matter be not merchandise nor conquest, fear thou less for character. If a liar accuseth thee of evil, be not swift to answer;

[afterward: Yea, rather give him license for a while; it shall help thine honour Never yet was calumny engendered, but good men speedily discerned it, And innocence hath burst from its injustice, as the green world rolling out of Chaos.

What though still the wicked scoff, this also turneth to his praise;
Did ye never hear that censure of the bad is buttress to a good man's glory?
What if the ignorant still hold out, obstinate in unkind judgment—
Ignorance and calumny are paired; we affirm by too negations;
Let them stand round about, pushing at the column in a circle,
For all their toil and wasted strength, the foolish do but prop it.
And note thou this; in the secret of their hearts, they feel the taunt is

[unanswering;

false, And cannot help but reverence the courage that walketh amid calumnies He standeth as a gallant chief, unheeding shot or shell; [harm him. He trusted in God his Judge; neither arrows nor the pestilence shall

A HIGH heart is a sacrifice to Heaven; should it stoop among the creepers
To tell them what God approved is worthy of their praise?
Never shall it heed the thought; but, flaming on in triumph to the skies,
And quite forgetting fame, shall find it added as a trophy. [altitude
A great mind is an altar on a hill; should the priest descend from his
To canvass offerings and worship from dwellers on the plain?
Rather with majestic perseverance will he minister in solitary grandeur,
Confident the time will come when pilgrims shall be flocking to the shrine.
For fame is the birthright of genius; and he recketh not how long it be
delayed;

[ure is eternal.

The heir need not hasten to his heritage, when he knoweth that his ten-
The careless poet of Avon, was he troubled for his fame? [equals?
Or the deep-mouthed chronicler of Paradise, heeded he the suffrage of his
Mæonides took no thought, committing all his honours to the future,
And Flaccus, standing on his watch-tower, spied the praise of ages.

SMOKING flax will breed a flame, and the flame may illuminate a world;
Where is he who scorned that smoke as foul and murky vapour?
The village stream swelled to a river, and the river was a kingdom's
Where is he who boasted he could step across that stream? [wealth;
Such are the beginnings of the famous; little in the judgment of their peers,
The juster verdict of posterity shall fix them in the orbits of the Great.
Therefore dull Zoilus, clamouring ascendant of the hour,

Will soon be fain to hide his hate, and bury up his bitterness for shame;
Therefore mocking Momus, offended at the steps of Beauty,*

Shall win the prize of his presumption, and be hooted from his throne among the stars.

For as the shadow of a mountain lengtheneth before the setting sun, Until that screening Alp have darkened all the canton

So, Fame groweth to its great ones; their images loom larger in departing; But the shadow of mind is light and earth is filled with its glory.

AND thou, student of the truth, commended to the praise of God,
Wouldst thou find applause with men?-seek it not, nor shun it;
Ancient fame is roofed in cedar, and her walls are marble;
Modern fame lodgeth in a hut, a slight and temporary dwelling:
Lay not up the treasures of thy soul within so damp a chamber,
For the moth of detraction shall fret thy robe, and drop its eggs upon

thy motive;

Or the rust of disheartening reserve shall spoil the lustre of thy gold, Until its burnished beauty shall be dim as tarnished brass;

Or thieves, breaking through to steal, shall claim thy jewelled thoughts, And turn to charge the theft on thee, a pilferer from them!

THERE is a magnanimity in recklessness of fame, so fame be well deserving,
That rusheth on in fearless might, the conscious sense of merit;
And there is a littleness in jealousy of fame, looking as aware of weakness,
That creepeth cautiously along, afraid that its title will be challenged.
The wild boar, full of beech-mast, flingeth him down among the brambles;
Secure in bristly strength, without a watch he sleepeth :

* Momus, a typification of the force of ridicule, was once counted among the hierarchs of heathen mythology; but, as he made game of every one, he never found a friend; and when, at length, in a gush of hypercriticism, he presumed to censure the peerless Mother of Beauty for awkwardness in walking, the enraged celestials flung him from their sphere, and sent the fallen spirit down to men.

But the hare, afraid to feed, croucheth in its own soft form;
Wakefully, with timid eyes and quivering ears, he listeneth.
Even so, a giant's might is bound up in the soul of Genius,

His neck is strong with confidence, and he goeth tusked with power;
Sturdily he roameth in the forest, or sunneth him in fen and field,
And scareth from his marshy lair a host of fearful foes.

But there is a mimic Talent, whose safety lieth in its quickness,
A timorous thing of doubling guile, that scarce can face a friend;
This one is captious of reproof, provident to snatch occasion,
Greedy of applause, and vexed to lose one tittle of the glory.

He is a poor warder of his fame, who is ever on the watch to keep it spotless;

Such care argueth debility, a garrison relying on its sentinel.

Passive strength shall scorn excuses, patiently waiting a reaction;
He wotteth well that truth is great, and must prevail at last;

But fretful weakness hasteth to explain, anxiously dreading prejudice,
And ignorant that perishable falsehood dieth as a branch cut off.

PURITY of motive and nobility of mind shall rarely condescend

To prove its rights and prate of wrongs, or evidence its worth to others.
And it shall be small care to the high and happy conscience

What jealous friends, or envious foes, or common fools may judge.
Should the lion turn and rend every snarling jackal,

Or an eagle be stopped in his career to punish the petulance of sparrows?

Should the palm-tree bend his crown to chide the brier at his feet,

Nor kindly help its climbing, if it hope, and be ambitious?

Should the nightingale account it worth her pains to vindicate her music Before some sorry finches, that affect to judge of song?

No: many an injustice, many a sneer, and slur,

Is passed aside with noble scorn by lovers of true fame:

For well they wot that glory shall be tinctured, good or evil,

[skin:

By the character of those who give it, as wine is flavoured by the wine-
So that worthy Fame floweth only from a worthy fountain,
But from an ill-conditioned troop the best report is worthless.
And if the sensibility of genius count his injuries in secret,
Wisely will he hide the pains a hardened herd would mock:

For the great mind well may be sad to note such littleness in brethren,
The while he is comforted and happy in the firmest assurance of desert.