Skill and learning, truth, falsehood, knowledge of things gone and things to come,
Pride and praise, honour and dishonour, warnings, ensamples, emulations,
The excellent in virtues, and the reprobate in vice, with the cloud of indifferent spectators,—
Wave on wave with flooding force throng the shoals of thought,
Filling that immeasurable theme, the height and depth of Fame.
With soul unsatisfied and mind dismayed, my feet have touched the threshold,
Fain to pour these flowers and fruits an offering on that altar:
Lo, how vast the temple,—there are clouds within the dome!
Yet might the huge expanse be filled, with volumes writ on Fame.