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!
Cassius Hueffer
Analysis, meaning and summary of Edgar Lee Masters's poem Cassius Hueffer
3 Comments
Leave a Reply
Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Edgar Lee Masters better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
Interesting poem. This is a practice comment.
This epitaph has a very ironic tone in that it uses epitaphs inside the epitaph to describe the writter. This creates a sense that the person who the epitaph was written for was to richious to be described in one sentence. Also it alludes to the actual grave stone twice and creates a false reality in its own security of the tomb.
Thought it was a good poem. Made me think a little!