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."

Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.The lyrical form of this poem is aabb.2. among: \