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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE, by WILLIAM COWPER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
Last Line: And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!
Subject(s): Transience; Impermanence
First Line: Oh, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
Last Line: And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!
Subject(s): Transience; Impermanence
RECORDED IN THE "BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA."
OH, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain, recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethaean gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child (as playful children use)
Has burnt to tinder a stale last-year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire--
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!
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