Where is he who boasted he could step across that stream?
Such are the beginnings of the famous: little in the judgment of their peers,
The juster verdict of posterity shall fix them in the orbits of the Great.
Therefore dull Zoilus, clamouring ascendant of the hour,
Will soon be fain to hide his hate, and bury up his bitterness for shame:
Therefore mocking Momus, offended at the footsteps of Beauty,
Shall win the prize of his presumption, and be hooted from his throne among the stars.
For, as the shadow of a mountain lengtheneth before the setting sun,
Until that screening Alp have darkened all the canton,—
So, Fame groweth to its great ones; their images loom longer in departing;