Has Fame Captured Your Soul?
Has Fame Captured Your Soul?
Has Fame captured your soul,
So that now you are the hollow shell
Of the man that once you were?
Ah, that I, mere man aspiring to those peaks
Of worthiness and newly acclaimed scrivener,
Should turn his back on the garret,
The guttering candle and the worn quill of creativity.
Does applause ring so loud in your ear
That you hear not the raging voice
From your anguished past?
The voice of a another writer, a scribe,
A nobler and more audacious man
Who laboured also over words and thoughts
And fancies, twisting here and pushing there
To force a radiant face from out
A mundane set of mean and cringing letters;
Who drove a pen, a sword, an anguished dagger,
Straight at the breast of mediocrity of phrase;
Wielded a semantic scythe through the hobbling,
And shuffling excuses that tumbled carelessly
From soiled and fruitless mouths.