To Goodness or Greatness: to be good and die, Or to be great and live forever great: To be the unknown Smith that saves the state And blooms unhonoured by the public eye: To be the unknown Robinson or Brown Whose piping virtues perish in the mud Or triumphing in blasphemy and blood, The imperial pirate, pickled in renown: Unfaltering BRASH the latter number chose Of this eterne antithesis: and still The flower of his immortal memory blows Where'er the spirits of the loathed repose Where'er the trophy of the gibbet hill Dejects the traveller and collects the crows. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SCARLET TANAGER by JOEL BENTON THE SICKNESS by CHARLES BUKOWSKI EARLY RISING by JOHN GODFREY SAXE KNIFE OF NOSTALGIA by AVANELLE WILMETH BLAIR THE NIGHT JOURNEY by RUPERT BROOKE CAELIA: SONNETS: 14 by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) THE SHEPHERD'S PIPE: SECOND ECLOGUE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |