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 o n'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.”