The poem
Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on! Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee; Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan To biting blasts that are intent on me.
But if thy object Fame's far summits be, Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies That missed both dream and substance, stop and see How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!
It surely is far sweeter and more wise To water love, than toil to leave anon A name whose glory-gleam will but advise Invidious minds to quench it with their own,
And over which the kindliest will but stay A moment, musing, "He, too, had his day!"