Fame Vs. Riches

The Greeks had genius,--'t was a gift
The Muse vouchsafed in glorious measure;
The boon of Fame they made their aim
And prized above all worldly treasure.

But we,--how do we train our youth?
Not in the arts that are immortal,
But in the greed for gains that speed
From him who stands at Death's dark portal.

Ah, when this slavish love of gold
Once binds the soul in greasy fetters,
How prostrate lies,--how droops and dies
The great, the noble cause of letters!

Eugene Field

Eugene Field was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he was known as the 'Poet of Childhood' due to his well-loved poems for children. After his mother's death in 1856, he was raised by a cousin in Amherst, Massachusetts. Field studied at several universities but never graduated. His most famous poems include 'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod' and 'The Duel.' Field worked as a journalist and editor in various cities, including Chicago, where he spent the last years of his life.

Eugene Field

Jest 'Fore Christmas

Eugene Field, Simple Poetry

Little Mack

Eugene Field, Simple Poetry

Our Two Opinions

Eugene Field, Simple Poetry

The Bench-Legged Fyce

Eugene Field, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Fame

Ah Fate, cannot a man
Be wise without a beard?
East, West, from Beer to Dan,
Say, was it never heard
That wisdom might in youth be gotten,
Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?

He pays too high a price
For knowledge and for fame
Who sells his sinews to be wise,
His teeth and bones to buy a name,
And crawls through life a paralytic
To earn the praise of bard and critic.

Were it not better done,
To dine and sleep through forty years;
Be loved by few; be feared by none;
Laugh life away; have wine for tears;
And take the mortal leap undaunted,
Content that all we asked was granted?

But Fate will not permit
The seed of gods to die,
Nor suffer sense to win from wit
Its guerdon in the sky,
Nor let us hide, whate'er our p...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fame's Penny-Trumpet

Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back,
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!

Fill all the air with hungry wails,
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"

And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the sty

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!

Who prea...

Lewis Carroll

The Triumph Of Time.

Dell' aureo albergo con l' Aurora innanzi.


    Behind Aurora's wheels the rising sun
His voyage from his golden shrine begun,
With such ethereal speed, as if the Hours
Had caught him slumb'ring in her rosy bowers.
With lordly eye, that reach'd the world's extreme,
Methought he look'd, when, gliding on his beam,
That wingèd power approach'd that wheels his car
In its wide annual range from star to star,
Measuring vicissitude; till, now more near,
Methought these thrilling accents met my ear:--
"New laws must be observed if mortals claim,
Spite of the lapse of time, eternal fame.
Those laws have lost their force that Heaven decreed,
And I my circle run with fruitless speed;
If fame's loud breath the slumb'ring dust inspire,
And bid to live wit...

Francesco Petrarca

Love Of Fame, The Universal Passion. Satire IV.

To the Right Honourable Sir Spencer Compton.


Round some fair tree th' ambitious woodbine grows,
And breathes her sweets on the supporting boughs;
So sweet the verse, th' ambitious verse, should be,
(O! pardon mine) that hopes support from thee;
Thee, Compton, born o'er senates to preside,
Their dignity to raise, their councils guide;
Deep to discern, and widely to survey,
And kingdoms' fates, without ambition, weigh;
Of distant virtues nice extremes to blend,
The crown's asserter, and the people's friend:
Nor dost thou scorn, amid sublimer views,
To listen to the labours of the muse;
Thy smiles protect her, while thy talents fire,
And 'tis but half thy glory to inspire.
Vex'd at a public fame, so justly won,
The jealous Chremes is with spleen undon...

Edward Young

To Mæcenas

Mæcenas, thou of royalty's descent,
Both my protector and dear ornament,
Among humanity's conditions are
Those who take pleasure in the flying car,
Whirling Olympian dust, as on they roll,
And shunning with the glowing wheel the goal;
While the ennobling palm, the prize of worth,
Exalts them to the gods, the lords of earth.

Here one is happy if the fickle crowd
His name the threefold honor has allowed;
And there another, if into his stores
Comes what is swept from Libyan threshing-floors.
He who delights to till his father's lands,
And grasps the delving-hoe with willing hands,
Can never to Attalic offers hark,
Or cut the Myrtoan Sea with Cyprian bark.
The merchant, timorous of Afric's breeze,
When fiercely struggling with Icarian seas
Praises ...

Eugene Field

Fame

I

Once, in a dream, I saw a man
    With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
    As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand
    Whose magic touch gave life and thought
    Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand,
    It seemed the reflex of some child
    Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -
    A face of purity and love -
    To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
    A gleaming smile lit up his lips
    As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture - nothing more.

II

And once I saw a man, alone,
    In abject poverty, with hand
Uplifted o'er a b...

James Whitcomb Riley