Explore "Herman Altman" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Did I follow Truth wherever she led, / And stand against the whole world for a cause, / And uphold the weak against the strong?
If I did I would be remembered among men / As I was known in life among the people, / And as I was hated and loved on earth, / Therefore, build no monument to me, / And carve no bust for me, / Lest, though I become not a demi-god, / The reality of my soul be lost, / So that thieves and liars, / Who were my enemies and destroyed me, / And the children of thieves and liars, / May claim me and affirm before my bust / That they stood with me in the days of my defeat.
Build me no monument / Lest my memory be perverted to the uses / Of lying and oppression.
My lovers and their children must not be dispossessed of me;
I would be the untarnished possession forever / Of those for whom I lived.