Fame

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20 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath of the cowslip and primrose sweet With the sky above my head, and the grass beneath my feet, For only one short hour to feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want^md the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh! but for one short hour! -a respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, but only time for Grief! A little weeping would ease my heart, but in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn, with eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread Stitch —stitch — stich! in poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, —would that its tone could reach

the Rich! She sang this "Song of the shirt!"

FAME.

BY ALEXANDER POPE.

What's fame? A fancy'd life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death. Just what you hear, you have; and what's unknown. The same (my lord) if Tully's, or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; To all beside as much an empty shade An Eugene living as a Caesar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod; An honest man's the noblest work of God.