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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAME, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The names that slow oblivion have defied
Last Line: To life and joy and love unperishing.
Alternate Author Name(s): Talfourd, Sergeant
Subject(s): Fame; Reputation


THE names that slow oblivion have defied,
And passionate ambition's wildest shocks
Stand in lone grandeur, like eternal rocks,
To cast broad shadows o'er the silent tide
Of time's unebbing flood, whose waters glide
To ponderous darkness from their secret spring
And, bearing on each transitory thing,
Leave those old monuments in loneliest pride.
There stand they -- fortresses uprear'd by man,
Whose earthly frame is mortal; symbols high
Of power unchanging, -- thought that cannot die;
Proofs that our nature is not of a span,
But of immortal essence, and allied
To life and joy and love unperishing.





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