The To-Be-Forgotten

I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II
--"O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!

III
"These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.

IV
"They count 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, can say
We hold in some soul loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.

VI
"But what has been will be --
First memory, then oblivion's swallowing 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."

I towered far, and lo! I stood within
   The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
   Some answer to their cry.

   --"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
   By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
   Such world I fashioned not." -

   --"O Lord, forgive me when I say
   Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!
   I dimly do recall

   "Some tiny sphere I built long back
   (Mid millions of such shapes of mine)
So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack
   Remaining, or a sign?

   "It lost my interest from the first,
   My aims therefor succeeding ill;
Haply it died of doing as it durst?" -
   "Lord, it existeth still." -

   "Dark, then, its life! For not a cry
   Of aught it bears do I now hear;
Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby
   Its plaints had reached mine ear.

   "It used to ask for gifts of good,
   Till came its severance self-entailed,
When sudden silence on that side ensued,
   And has till now prevailed.

   "All other orbs have kept in touch;
   Their voicings reach me speedily:
Thy people took upon them overmuch
   In sundering them from me!

   "And it is strange--though sad enough -
   Earth's race should think that one whose call
Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff
   Must heed their tainted ball! . . .

   "But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,
   And strife, and silent suffering? -
Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought
   Even on so poor a thing!

   "Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend
   For Me could mean but Not to Know:
Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end
   To what men undergo." . . .

   Homing at dawn, I thought to see
   One of the Messengers standing by.
- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me
   When trouble hovers nigh.

I
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.

II
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.

III
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
At times endowed with wings of glorious range.

IV
And this phantasmal variousness
Ever possessed it as they drew along:
Yet throughout all it symboled none the less
Potency vast and loving-kindness strong.

V
Almost before I knew I bent
Towards the moving columns without a word;
They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,
Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard: --

VI
'O man-projected Figure, of late
Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
Whence came it we were tempted to create
One whom we can no longer keep alive?

VII
'Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,
We gave him justice as the ages rolled,
Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,
And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.

VIII
'And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed,

IX
'Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing,
Uncompromising rude reality
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.

X
'So, toward our myth's oblivion,
Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.

XI
'How sweet it was in years far hied
To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,
To lie down liegely at the eventide
And feel a blest assurance he was there!

XII
'And who or what shall fill his place?
Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?'...

XIII
Some in the background then I saw,
Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
Who chimed as one: 'This is figure is of straw,
This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!'

XIV
I could not prop their faith: and yet
Many I had known: with all I sympathized;
And though struck speechless, I did not forget
That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.

XV
Still, how to bear such loss I deemed
The insistent question for each animate mind,
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,

XVI
Whereof, to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
'See you upon the horizon that small light --
Swelling somewhat?' Each mourner shook his head.

XVII
And they composed a crowd of whom
Some were right good, and many nigh the best....
Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom
Mechanically I followed with the rest.

The Supplanter: A Tale

I

He bends his travel-tarnished feet
   To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
   Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
   Unto her mound to pray.

II

"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet
   My forward-straining view?
Or forms that cross a window-blind
   In circle, knot, and queue:
Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind
   To music throbbing through?" -

III

"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs
   Dwells by its gateway-pier;
He celebrates with feast and dance
   His daughter's twentieth year:
He celebrates with wine of France
   The birthday of his dear." -

IV

"The gates are shut when evening glooms:
   Lay down your wreath, sad wight;
To-morrow is a time more fit
   For placing flowers aright:
The morning is the time for it;
   Come, wake with us to-night!" -

V

He grounds his wreath, and enters in,
   And sits, and shares their cheer. -
"I fain would foot with you, young man,
   Before all others here;
I fain would foot it for a span
   With such a cavalier!"

VI

She coaxes, clasps, nor fails to win
   His first-unwilling hand:
The merry music strikes its staves,
   The dancers quickly band;
And with the damsel of the graves
   He duly takes his stand.

VII

"You dance divinely, stranger swain,
   Such grace I've never known.
O longer stay! Breathe not adieu
   And leave me here alone!
O longer stay: to her be true
   Whose heart is all your own!" -

VIII

"I mark a phantom through the pane,
   That beckons in despair,
Its mouth all drawn with heavy moan -
   Her to whom once I sware!" -
"Nay; 'tis the lately carven stone
   Of some strange girl laid there!" -

IX

"I see white flowers upon the floor
   Betrodden to a clot;
My wreath were they?"--"Nay; love me much,
   Swear you'll forget me not!
'Twas but a wreath! Full many such
   Are brought here and forgot."

* * *

X

The watches of the night grow hoar,
   He rises ere the sun;
"Now could I kill thee here!" he says,
   "For winning me from one
Who ever in her living days
   Was pure as cloistered nun!"

XI

She cowers, and he takes his track
   Afar for many a mile,
For evermore to be apart
   From her who could beguile
His senses by her burning heart,
   And win his love awhile.

XII

A year: and he is travelling back
   To her who wastes in clay;
From day-dawn until eve he fares
   Along the wintry way,
From day-dawn until eve repairs
   Unto her mound to pray.

XIII

And there he sets him to fulfil
   His frustrate first intent:
And lay upon her bed, at last,
   The offering earlier meant:
When, on his stooping figure, ghast
   And haggard eyes are bent.

XIV

"O surely for a little while
   You can be kind to me!
For do you love her, do you hate,
   She knows not--cares not she:
Only the living feel the weight
   Of loveless misery!

XV

"I own my sin; I've paid its cost,
   Being outcast, shamed, and bare:
I give you daily my whole heart,
   Your babe my tender care,
I pour you prayers; and aye to part
   Is more than I can bear!"

XVI

He turns--unpitying, passion-tossed;
   "I know you not!" he cries,
"Nor know your child. I knew this maid,
   But she's in Paradise!"
And swiftly in the winter shade
   He breaks from her and flies.

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, 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 upright
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 descendent 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 waterspout,
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.'