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."