Tonight in the car I flashed on a poem I had long ago admired and memorized. I knew it as "Swift's Epitaph", but I was unsure who had written it. Yeats, I thought... but the timing was wrong for Yeats to be writing an epitaph for Jonathan Swift.
So, I looked on Wikipedia, and now I know. Yeats's poem is a very free translation from the epitaph Swift wrote for himself in Latin.
I'm just going to let Yeats be my honored guest rhymer for this one. Here's his poem:
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.
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