The Knickerbocker/Volume 13/Number 5/Laconics Paraphrased
LACONICS PARAPHRASED.
I.What is fame, when the spade our last bed hath designed,But a tune to the deaf, or a torch to the blind;An ovation decreed, though the hero be dead:Like the archangel's trump, it is blown o'er the dead;But unlike that dread blast, none but fools it amazes,And you 'll find, when too late, it nor rouses nor raises.II.Pain, thou sole perfect thing to earth assigned,The body take, but spare, oh! spare the mind!Wrecked on thy rocks, or on thy billows tossed,Oh, save the compass, though the bark be lost!Hero Reason's self not without fear presides,And, like the needle, trembles while she guides.III.That promise autumn pays, which spring began,And what the school-boy was, such is the man:The sap and tender bud in childhood shoot,And youth the blossom gives—but age the fruit.