Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE OBLITERATE TOMB, by THOMAS HARDY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: More than half my life long Last Line: Told in their day.' Subject(s): Graves; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
'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 night he went And sought the church he had known them to frequent, And wandered, lantern-bearing, in the precincts, 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 dreaming 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 fared of purpose here to find them.... They are time-worn, true, 'But that's a fault, at most, Carvers 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 upright 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. 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 kinsman entered That city again. Till doubts grew keen If it had chanced not that the figure seen Shaped but in dream on that dim doubtful midnight: Such things had been.... So, 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 on'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 waterspout, 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.' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL AND THERE WAS A GREAT CALM' by THOMAS HARDY |
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