A Poet's Epitaph, by William Wordsworth

A Poet's Epitaph

Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then may'st thou think upon the dead.   A Lawyer art thou?draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.   Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.   Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome!but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.   Physician art thou?one, all eyes,
Philosopher!a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?   Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!   A Moralist perchance appears;
Led, Heaven knows how! To this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;   One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!   Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.   But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.   He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.   The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.   In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.   But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.   Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.

poems.one - William Wordsworth