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fame. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems) [1909]

Edition used:

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909).

Part of: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


fame.

    • Ah Fate, cannot a man
    • Be wise without a beard?
    • East, West, from Beer to Dan,
    • Say, was it never heard
    • That wisdom might in youth be gotten,
    • Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?
    • He pays too high a price
    • For knowledge and for fame
    • Who sells his sinews to be wise,
    • His teeth and bones to buy a name,
    • And crawls through life a paralytic
    • To earn the praise of bard and critic.
    • Were it not better done,
    • To dine and sleep through forty years;
    • Be loved by few; be feared by none;
    • Laugh life away; have wine for tears;
    • And take the mortal leap undaunted,
    • Content that all we asked was granted?
    • But Fate will not permit
    • The seed of gods to die,
    • Nor suffer sense to win from wit
    • Its guerdon in the sky,
    • Nor let us hide, whate'er our pleasure,
    • The world's light underneath a measure.
    • Go then, sad youth, and shine;
    • Go, sacrifice to Fame;
    • Put youth, joy, health, upon the shrine,
    • And life to fan the flame;
    • Being for Seeming bravely barter,
    • And die to Fame a happy martyr.