Weird Tales/Volume 9/Issue 1/Fame
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For works with similar titles, see Fame.
Fame
By A. Leslie
High and cold, the tapers
Burn with a wheat-white fire,
And the silver stands are clotted
With the ash of dead desire.
Bleak as the flameless altar
Of the "god without a name,"
Stands 'mid the sweeping star-winds
The lonely shrine of Fame.
Stilled is the song of laughter.
Frozen the warmth of tears,
Sound only grand cadenzas—
The Heart Song of the spheres.
Rugged the way and narrow,
Pale with the bleach of bones,
Riming of sweat in the furrows,
Black'ning of blood on the stones.
And they who kneel at the chancel
Gaze forward, they dare not look back.
For white are the "pillars," and bitter,
That warn by the soul-clutching track.