. .
"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.
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