Classic Poem

Up and away, like the dew of the morning,
Soaring from earth to its home in the sun, —
So let me steal away, gently and lovingly,
Only remembered by what I have done.

My name and my place and my tomb, all forgotten,
The brief race of time well and patiently run,
So let me pass away, peacefully, silently,
Only remembered by what I have done.

Gladly away from this toil would I hasten,
Up to the crown that for me has been won;
Unthought of by man in rewards or in praises, —
Only remembered by what I have done.

Up and away, like the odors of sunset,
That sweeten the twilight as darkness comes on, —
So be my life, — a thing falt but not noticed,
And I but remembered by what I have done.

Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness,
When the flowers that it came from are closed up and gone, —
So would I be to this world's weary dwellers,
Only remembered by what I have done.

Needs there the praise of the love-written record,
The name and the epitaph graved on the stone?
The things we have lived for, — let them be our story,
We ourselves but remembered by what we have done.

I need not be missed, if my life has been bearing
(As its summer and autumn moved silently on)
The bloom, and the fruit, and the seed of its season;
I shall still be remembered by what I have done.

I need not be missed, if another succeed me,
To reap down those fields which in spring I have sown;
He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper,
He is only remembered by what he has done.

Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken,
Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown,
Shall pass on to ages, — all about me forgotten,
Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done.

So let my living be, so be my dying;
So let my name lie, unblazoned, unknown;
Unpraised and unmissed, I shall still be remembered;
Yes, — but remembered by what I have done.