Shall Our Memories Live When the Sod Rolls Above Us?

Shall our memories live, when the sod rolls above us
    And marks our last home with a mouldering heap?
Shall the voices of those who profess that they love us
    E'er mention our names, as we dreamlessly sleep?

Will their eyes ever dim at some fond recollection,
    Or their hands ever plant a small flower o'er the breast,
Or will they gaze with a sad circumspection
    At the tablets, which tell of our last solemn rest?

Ah! soon shall the hearts which our memories cherish
    Forget, as they strive with the cares of their own;
And even the last dim remembrance shall perish
    As we peacefully slumber, unwept and unknown.

But if our lives, though of transient duration,
    Are filled with some work in humanity's name,
Some uplifting effort, or self-immolation,
    Our memories shall live in the temples of Fame.

Alfred Castner King

Alfred Castner King was an American poet. He is recognized for his significant contributions to American poetry. Despite battling with blindness, his disability did not deter him from crafting poetry that captivated many readers. King often wrote about nature and personal experiences, reflecting a deep appreciation for the world around him and the nuances of human emotion.

Alfred Castner King

There is an Air of Majesty.

Alfred Castner King, Simple Poetry

Reflections.

Alfred Castner King, Simple Poetry

Nature's Child.

Alfred Castner King, Simple Poetry

An Answer.

Alfred Castner King, Simple Poetry

English

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In Mortem Meditare.

DYING THOUGHTS.


As Life's receding sunset fades
    And night descends,
I calmly watch the gathering shades,
As darkness stealthily invades
    And daylight ends.

Earth's span is drawing to its close,
    With every breath;
My pain-racked brain no respite knows,
Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose
    It feels in death.

The curtain falls on Life's last scene,
    The end is neared;
At last I face death's somber screen,
The fleeting joys which intervene
    Have disappeared.

And as a panoramic scroll
    The past unreels;
The mocking past, beyond control,
Though buried, as a parchment roll,
    Its tale reveals.

I stand before the dread, unknown,
    Yet solemn fact;
I see the seeds of foll...

Alfred Castner King

Memories

Oft I remember those whom I have known
    In other days, to whom my heart was led
    As by a magnet, and who are not dead,
    But absent, and their memories overgrown
With other thoughts and troubles of my own,
    As graves with grasses are, and at their head
    The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,
    Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them?    After long years,
    Do they remember me in the same way,
    And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
    Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
    And yet the root perennial may be.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memoria In Æterna.

Sweet Memory! thou faculty divine--
Triumphant o'er the cruel hand of Time!
On thy tablets we may trace
The lines his fingers ne'er efface,
And take with us till latest day
The images that light our way,
And picture thus in a shadowy form
The loved and lost he's from us torn--
Their lids by Death so early sealed--
Life's crimson tide by him congealed--
The tyrant has not all concealed--
They in thy mirror still revealed!

Before the morning sunbeams kissed
The face of Nature--veiled in mist--
And heralded with golden ray
The opening of the perfect day--
Ere yet the sable shades of night
At dawn's approach had winged their flight--
We've listed to the whispering breeze
That's wafted o'er the trembling trees,
And seemed to hear the voice...

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A Reverie.

O, tomb of the past
Where buried hopes lie,
In my visions I see
Thy phantoms pass by!
A form, long departed,
    Before me appears;
A sweet voice, long silent,
    Again greets my ears.

Fond memory dwells
    On the things that have been;
And my eyes calmly gaze
    On a long vanished scene;
A scene such as memory
    Stores deep in the breast,
Which only appears
    In a season of rest.

Once more we wander,
    Her fair hand in mine;
Once more her promise,
    "I'll ever be thine";
Once more the parting,
    The shroud, and the pall,
The sods' hollow thump
    As they coffinward fall.

The reverie ends--
    All the fancies have flown;
And my sad, lonely heart,
    Now seems doubly alone;...

Alfred Castner King

Dying Hymn.

    The hour-glass speeds its final sands,
        In splendor sinks the golden sun,
    So men must yield to death's demands
        When human life its course has run.

    We view the ruins of the past,
        We stand surrounded by decay,
    Our transient hours are speeding fast
        And, e'er we think, have passed away.

    Weep not, nor mourn with idle tear
That hour, inevitable and sure;
    We move, our sojourn finished here,
        To nobler realms which shall endure.

Alfred Castner King

Thanatopsis.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, e're he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around,
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,
Comes a still voice, Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In a...

William Cullen Bryant