What Use To You Poem by Francis Duggan

What use to you your fame and power and money if there's no life beyond the doors of death
For your so called achievements you leave behind you on the moment that you draw your final breath
And then you are no better than the paupers all of those who died without a penny to their name
In death to you it won't be of any value if you've been outlived by your Earthly fame.

We worry about status, fame and money and though the wealthy
are never short of a friend
The grim reaper for each of us is waiting and it won't matter to us in the end
Whether we die with a penny or a billion since an eternal life money can never buy
The billionaires may have expensive caskets but the money that was their others enjoy.

What use to you if you will be remembered if positive things of you the living say
You cannot hear them from an urn of ashes or if your ears are stuffed with earth and clay
In life you were one of the high achievers but in death all are equal all the same
One cannot say that this corpse is unequal or that this corpse is worthy of a greater fame.

What use to you your fame and power and money if like the pauper you will cease to live one day
The grim reaper for each of us is waiting and he takes the young and he takes the old and gray
The billionaires may have expensive caskets but an expensive casket in time will decay
And the longest human life in time a brief span and time as ever keeps ticking away.