They have Chiseled on my stone the words: 
'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him 
That nature might stand up and say to all the world, 
This was a man.' 
Those who knew me smile 
As they read this empty rhetoric. 
My epitaph should have been: 
'Life was not gentle to him, 
And the elements so mixed in him 
That he made warfare on life, 
In the which he was slain.' 
While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, 
Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph 
Graven by a fool!