In art and action, and whose memories keep
Their height like stars above our misty ways;
In this grave presence to record my name,
Something within me hangs the head and shrinks;
Dull were the soul without some joy in Fame:
Yet here to claim remembrance were, methinks,
Like him who in the desert’s awful frame,
Notches his cockney initials on the sphinx.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.