Fame

What is fame ?
A flash from the darkness of oblivion
Of forgetfulness and prejudices.

The sounds of recognition after silence,
The apex of ambition and attainment
What is fame ?
The remembrance of deeds and misdeeds
The names of heroes and knaves of great
Cunning
On the lips of the populace and orators
With intent for good purposes or evil

I hold no brief for wrong-doers
But for the fame of our fair island,
Her gallant sons and nobler mothers,
In whose ears are sounds of sacrifice
And in whose nostrils is the incense of burnt
Offering
In their hair, cypress and rue.

What is fame ?
A sound mingled with beating of wings,
The dark-moving wing of the Angel Death,
Deathless, immortal,yet born of death and
Sacrifice
Singing above our fallen brave and living heroes.

Fame was born on the height of Gaba Tepe,
On the wave-bitten stretch of its beaches,
On the battle-scarred sides or its slopes,
In the breast of the gallant living,
In the bier of the honoured dead.

In the great heart of the nobler mothers
Fame revealed to the wondering world
The wondrous fighting gallantry of our men.

Until the last stars are crashing into oblivion
And darkness is thrust about us,
The lasttrump echoes o’er chaotic void
Shall fame die not from the heart of mankind