The Obliterate Tomb

"More than half my life long     Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,     But they all have shrunk away into the silence         Like a lost song.         "And the day has dawned and come     For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb     On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered         Half in delirium . . .         "With folded lips and hands     They lie and wait what next the Will commands,     And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord         Sink with Life's sands!'         "By these late years their names,     Their virtues, their hereditary claims,     May be as near defacement at their grave-place         As are their fames."         Such thoughts bechanced to seize     A traveller's mind a man of memories -     As he set foot within the western city         Where had died these         Who in their lifetime deemed     Him their chief enemy one whose brain had schemed     To get their dingy greatness deeplier dingied         And disesteemed.         So, sojourning in their town,     He mused on them and on their once renown,     And said, "I'll seek their resting-place to-morrow         Ere I lie down,         "And end, lest I forget,     Those ires of many years that I regret,     Renew their names, that men may see some liegeness         Is left them yet."         Duly next day he went     And sought the church he had known them to frequent,     And wandered in the precincts, set on eyeing         Where they lay pent,         Till by remembrance led     He stood at length beside their slighted bed,     Above which, truly, scarce a line or letter         Could now be read.         "Thus years obliterate     Their graven worth, their chronicle, their date!     At once I'll garnish and revive the record         Of their past state,         "That still the sage may say     In pensive progress here where they decay,     'This stone records a luminous line whose talents         Told in their day.'"         While speaking thus he turned,     For a form shadowed where they lay inurned,     And he beheld a stranger in foreign vesture,         And tropic-burned.         "Sir, I am right pleased to view     That ancestors of mine should interest you,     For I have come of purpose here to trace them . . .         They are time-worn, true,         "But that's a fault, at most,     Sculptors can cure. On the Pacific coast     I have vowed for long that relics of my forbears         I'd trace ere lost,         "And hitherward I come,     Before this same old Time shall strike me numb,     To carry it out." "Strange, this is!" said the other;         "What mind shall plumb         "Coincident design!     Though these my father's enemies were and mine,     I nourished a like purpose to restore them         Each letter and line."         "Such magnanimity     Is now not needed, sir; for you will see     That since I am here, a thing like this is, plainly,         Best done by me."         The other bowed, and left,     Crestfallen in sentiment, as one bereft     Of some fair object he had been moved to cherish,         By hands more deft.         And as he slept that night     The phantoms of the ensepulchred stood up-right     Before him, trembling that he had set him seeking         Their charnel-site.         And, as unknowing his ruth,     Asked as with terrors founded not on truth     Why he should want them. "Ha," they hollowly hackered,         "You come, forsooth,         "By stealth to obliterate     Our graven worth, our chronicle, our date,     That our descendant may not gild the record         Of our past state,         "And that no sage may say     In pensive progress near where we decay:     'This stone records a luminous line whose talents         Told in their day.'"         Upon the morrow he went     And to that town and churchyard never bent     His ageing footsteps till, some twelvemonths onward,         An accident         Once more detained him there;     And, stirred by hauntings, he must needs repair     To where the tomb was. Lo, it stood still wasting         In no man's care.         "The travelled man you met     The last time," said the sexton, "has not yet     Appeared again, though wealth he had in plenty.         Can he forget?         "The architect was hired     And came here on smart summons as desired,     But never the descendant came to tell him         What he required."         And so the tomb remained     Untouched, untended, crumbling, weather-stained,     And though the one-time foe was fain to right it         He still refrained.         "I'll set about it when     I am sure he'll come no more. Best wait till then."     But so it was that never the stranger entered         That city again.         And the well-meaner died     While waiting tremulously unsatisfied     That no return of the family's foreign scion         Would still betide.         And many years slid by,     And active church-restorers cast their eye     Upon the ancient garth and hoary building         The tomb stood nigh.         And when they had scraped each wall,     Pulled out the stately pews, and smartened all,     "It will be well," declared the spruce church-warden,         "To overhaul         "And broaden this path where shown;     Nothing prevents it but an old tombstone     Pertaining to a family forgotten,         Of deeds unknown.         "Their names can scarce be read,     Depend on't, all who care for them are dead."     So went the tomb, whose shards were as path-paving         Distributed.         Over it and about     Men's footsteps beat, and wind and water-spout,     Until the names, aforetime gnawed by weathers,         Were quite worn out.         So that no sage can say     In pensive progress near where they decay,     "This stone records a luminous line whose talents         Told in their day."