Say, shall a sound so perishing and fleet
Waft round a tomb the eternal voice of praise?
Is this renown—a dying mortal’s sigh?
And you who said his glory ne’er could die—
Know you your term of days?
Attest the gods—through life, that mighty name
My lips have uttered but in scorn and shame—
That name—the vaunt of man’s delirious pride:
Proved more—still more its emptiness I find—
And spurn it—like the parched and vapid rind