Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/419

Rh I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze,

The bald antiquity of China praise.

Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend)

The fault that boys and nations soonest mend.

1824.

FAME

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?