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TO J. W. R.
Dazzling the honors of successful crime,
Deafening the plaudits of triumphant wrong!
But thou, great heart, didst glorify by song
A life too short, yet sweet, pure, true, sublime:
To Worth—unknown, dead in forgotten time,
Yet by one royal soul remembered long,
With love and grief that years but made more strong—
Thou rear'dst thy "humble monument of rhyme."
O Friend! in all this labyrinthine maze
Of human follies, falsities, and phlegms,
Still looms thine obelisk with stones that blaze—
Truths more resplendent than those thievish gems
That flash superb, proud of Heaven's stolen rays,
In coronets, tiaras, diadems.
f. e. a.
