I will be remembered long after my death
But what good would it do me then
If my name is whispered in the same breath
As the wise and the famous of men.
But why should my name be remembered
When my time here on earth is done;
I have built no great architecture,
Pyramid, I have raised not one.
No nation have I subjugated
Nor people subjected to oppression;
I have built no great world empire
By the blood of the sword and the gun.
No continent have I discovered
Nor patented great invention;
No physical or chemical law
Have I theorized or chanced upon.
No philosophy promulgated
Nor established a world religion
So why should my name even be mentioned
When the sand in the glass is gone.
But when rock erected upon rock
Has crumbled to dust and to ruins
Someone shall recall my temerity
To have penned these few indulgent lines.
Copyright ©2009 by G. Newton V. Chance
- G. NEWTON V. CHANCE
- George Newton Vivian Chance (Trinidad and Tobago) -- member of the Poet Society of Trinidad and Tobago, http://poetssocietytt.blogspot.com/ and the World Poets Society, http://world-poets.blogspot.com/ -- born in Tobago on 3rd March 1957. While residing at Rio Claro was inspired to write over a hundred poems at the turn of the Millennium. Hobbies include playing wind instruments, building computers, observing nature, reading and writing poetry. Believes that the power of a song is in its ability to evoke emotions by the marriage of lyric and music but that music without lyric can be just as powerful, that lyric without music can also be just as powerful, that there is music in the lyric and that lyric can be simple yet profound. Also, in this the age of computers, would like to model his lines after simple and efficient code and, analogous to Object Oriented Programming, achieve most of his imagery from nouns and verbs, avoiding the bloat and excess of unnecessary adjectives. This is what he aspires to attain in his poetry.
