“What’s that you’re writing? Looks like Verse . . . ?” “My Epitaph. Like to hear it? ‘He wish’d but for a middling Life, Forever in betwixt The claims of Lust and Duty, So intricately mix’d,— To reach some happy Medium, Fleet as a golden Beam, Uncharted as St. Brendan’s Isle, Fugitive as a Dream. Alas, ’twas not so much the Years As Day by thieving Day,— With Debts incurr’d, and Interest Due, That Dreams were sold to pay,— Until at last, but one remain’d, Too modest to have Worth, That yet he holds within his heart, As he is held, in Earth.’
