The To-Be-Forgotten

I

I HEARD a small sad sound, And stood awhile amid the tombs around: “Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are ye distrest, Now, screened from life’s unrest?”

II

—“O not at being here; But that our future second death is drear; When, with the living, memory of us numbs, And blank oblivion comes!

III

“Those who our grandsires be Lie here embraced by deeper death than we; Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry With keenest backward eye.

IV

“They bide as quite forgot; They are as men who have existed not; Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath; It is the second death.

V

“We here, as yet, each day Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway In some soul hold a loved continuance Of shape and voice and glance.

VI

“But what has been will be— First memory, then oblivion’s turbid sea; Like men foregone, shall we merge into those Whose story no one knows.

VII

“For which of us could hope To show in life that world-awakening scope Granted the few whose memory none lets die, But all men magnify?

VIII

“We were but Fortune’s sport; Things true, things lovely, things of good report We neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne, And seeing it we mourn.”