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, 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,
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poem by Thomas Hardy
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