Explore "Applause" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I hold it one of the sad certain laws / Which makes our failures sometime seem more kind / Than that success which brings sure loss behind- / True greatness dies, when sounds the world's applause / Fame blights the object it would bless, because / Weighed down with men's expectancy, the mind / Can no more soar to those far heights, and find / That freedom which its inspiration was. / When once we listen to its noisy cheers / Or hear the populace' approval, then / We catch no more the music of the spheres, / Or walk with gods, and angels, but with men. / Till, impotent from our self-conscious fears, / The plaudits of the world turn into sneers.