II 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."
