Classic Poem

WELL, when all is said and done
Best within my narrow way,
May some angel of the sun
Muse memorial o’er my clay:

“Here was beauty all betrayed
From the freedom of her state;
From her human uses stayed
On an idle rhyme to wait.

“Ah, what deep despair might move
If the beauty lit a smile,
Or the heart was warm with love
That was pondering the while.

“He has built his monument
With the winds of time at strife,
Who could have before he went
Written on the book of life.

“To the stars from which he came
Empty handed, he goes home;
He who might have wrought in flame
Only traced upon the foam.”