Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SONNET; ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Amid these fragments of heroic days Last Line: Notches his cockney initials on the sphinx. Subject(s): Autographs | ||||||||
AMID these fragments of heroic days When thought met deed with mutual passion's leap, There sits a Fame whose silent trump makes cheap What short-lived rumor of ourselves we raise. They had far other estimate of praise Who stamped the signet of their souls so deep In art and action, and whose memories keep Their height like stars above our misty ways: In this grave presence to record my name Something within me hangs the head and shrinks. Dull were the soul without some joy in fame; Yet here to claim remembrance were, methinks, Like him who, in the desert's awful frame, Notches his cockney initials on the Sphinx. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES IN AN AUTOGRAPH ALBUM by MIRIAM DEL BANCO AN AUTOGRAPH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL FOR AN AUTOGRAPH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AUTOGRAPHIC by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY DUKE ELLINGTON AT DISNEYLAND by AL DANIELSEN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by SUSAN MITCHELL HEADING UPSTATE HOLDING A CHILD'S BOOK OF AUTOGRAPHS by LEE UPTON AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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