Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
The To-be-forgotten
I
1 I heard a small sad sound,
2And stood awhile among the tombs around:
3"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
4 Now, screened from life's unrest?"
II
5 --"O not at being here;
6But that our future second death is near;
7When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
8 And blank oblivion comes!
III
9 "These, our sped ancestry,
10Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
11Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
12 With keenest backward eye.
IV
13 "They count as quite forgot;
14They are as men who have existed not;
15Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
16 It is the second death.
V
17 "We here, as yet, each day
18Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say
19We hold in some soul loved continuance
20 Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
21 "But what has been will be --
22First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea;
23Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
24 Whose story no one knows.
VII
25 "For which of us could hope
26To show in life that world-awakening scope
27Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
28 But all men magnify?
VIII
29 "We were but Fortune's sport;
30Things true, things lovely, things of good report
31We neither shunned nor sought ... We see our bourne,
32 And seeing it we mourn."
Notes
2] among: "amid" in 1903.
3] you: "ye" in 1903.
6] near: "drear" in 1903.
9] "Those who our grandsirs be" in 1903.
sped: gone, succeeded.
11] can you: "canst thou" in 1903.
13] count: "bide" in 1903.
18] can say: "alway" in 1903.
19] We hold in some soul: "In some soul hold a" in 1903.
22] swallowing: "turbid" in 1903.
31] bourne: destination, limits.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 131-32. PR 4741 F32 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1902
Publication date note: Poems of the Past and Present, 2nd edn. (1902 [1901]: London: Macmillan, 1903): 152-54. PR 4741 F03 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/13
Rhyme: aabb
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