Classic Poem

What are all crowns of fame—
 If any wreath, though my desert be small,
 Should in the end to love and labour fall—
What are they worth,—what is a poet's name?

 For years I toiled to win
 The laurel crown—it seemed the one thing worth
Eternal effort on the ephemeral earth:
 Such effort seems to-day almost a sin.

  This was the one thing worth
Far more than all the highest success on earth—
 To lay my tired pen down,
To cease from dreaming of the bay-leaf crown.

 To seek my mother's room
And there, though on the city darkness lay,
To meet the glad smile lovelier than the day,
 Sunlike in London's deepest gloom.