To James H.
Without Life's toil to win Life's earthly prize
What was thy mystery, oh, early Dead?
The careless world but counted thy young head
Among the multifarious heads that rise
And sink, forgot. For thee, no watching eyes
Starred darkness; no torch led thee to the bed
Of clay. Yet (if the Apostle justly said
Of all oblation) who or lives or dies
So well as to achieve a fairer fame
Than henceforth should be thine, oh, unknown youth,
Since on your votive marble, for once, Truth
Indites an Epitaph, and, 'neath thy name,
Transcends all laudatory verse in one,
'To him John Hunter raised this tributary stone.'
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Added by Poetry Lover
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