EPITAPH - Here lies who thought himself the best

EPITAPH

Here lies who thought himself the best

Of poets in the world's extent;

In life he had nor joy nor rest.

He filled with madness many a song,

And at whatever age he died

Thus many days he lived too long.

He lived in powerless egotism,

His soul tumultuous and disordered

By thought and feeling's endless schism.

In everything he had a be

And without courage bore his part

In life's interminable woe.

He was a slave to grief and fear

And incoherent thoughts he had

And wishes unto madness near.

Those whom he loved, by arts of ill

He treated worse than foes; but he

His own worst enemy was still.

He of himself ever did sing,

Incapable of modesty,

Lock'd in his wild imagining.

Useless was all his toilless trouble

Empty of sense his fears and pains

And many of them were ignoble.

Vile thus and worthless his distress;

His words, though bitterer far than bate,

His bitter soul could not express.

Thus was he miserable and bad,

Who yet could sob in tenderness —

And none was found to know him mad.

Let not a healthy mind pollute

His grave, but fitly there will pass

The traitor and the prostitute;

The drunkard and the wencher there

May pass, but quick, lest they should ponder,

Perchance, that pleasure is but air.

Each weak and execrable mind

Which plagued man with its rottenness

Its conscious master here will find,

Conscious, for in him he could tell

Madness and ill were what they were,

But neither did he will to quell.

Pass by therefore ye who can weep;

Let rottenness work in neglect,

While the rough winds the dead leaves sweep.

His slumbering brother to the sod

Not even in imagining

Disturb not with the name of God.

But let him lie at peace for ever

Far from the eyes and mouths of men

And from what him from them did sever.

He was a thing that God had wrought

And to the sin of having lived

He joined the crime of having thought.