Columns uplifted high,
Of living bronze,
Or stone carved skilfully,
Fame's clarions—

Never to men can give
Their deathless meed
Like song that makes to live
Each noble deed.

If poets had not come
To grace their name,
Virtue herself were dumb
And tongueless Fame,

And dead the memory
Of Hector's worth.
But winged with song they fly
Throughout the earth.