He scratches out the sentences in vain
And fills line after line, so lines are filled.
There’s aching in his fingers and his brain
From all the precious ink that he has spilled.
He sells himself under the moon to please
His editors, his critics, and the rest —
Those pigs and prigs, the public, who still sees
That he should be counted among the best.
His star is bright in heaven, for the time,
Next to the others who have tried their hand
At prose or verse, at reason or at rhyme,
To beat the hourglass’s falling sand.
But he whose words in life went well-unknown
In death just like the summer sun has shone.