I stood beside the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd, Through the thick deaths of half a century?
Chorus: You are the fools, not I - for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, On that Old Sexton's natural advice, In which there was Obscurity and Fame - The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight, So soon, and so successless? As I said, The Architect of all on which we tread, For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay, To extricate remembrance from the clay,