DOMESTIC FAME by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES

WHY is the Grave so silent? Why is the Tomb so dead?
Wherefore this gloomy secret on each departed head?

Why do we name them seldom, and then with voices low,
As if some shame were on them, or superhuman woe?

Were Death the sleep eternal that some despairing feign,
Had never Faith engendered the hope to meet again, --

Still why should this great absence obliterate with it tears
The happiest recollections and sympathies of years?

Oh, no! Death could not banish the love that lived complete,
And passed away untarnished to its celestial seat!

Oh, no! 'tis not the living that we should harshly blame,
But that men lightly cherish their pure domestic fame.

How few leave not behind them some cause to bless the tomb,
That mercifully closes, and pardons in its gloom!

How few go from us, leaving the thoughts of them so dear,
That aye the prayer besets us, "O God! that they were here!"

So that in distant evenings, when joyous faces glow
About the Christmas fire-light and laughter melts the snow, --

In pauses of the revel, some heart without a fear,
Will passionately murmur -- "Ah! why are they not here?"

Or that in weary seasons, when sickness racks the brain,
And lordly Reason falters, and Will is only pain, --

Those whom they loved to counsel may mystically hear
Their voices leading onwards the path they trod when here:

Or that in awful moments, when evil seems set free
To tempt mankind to question what God of Truth there be, --

The sense how @3they,@1 too, strove and conquered, serves to cheer
The struggler, dimly conscious of spirits watching near.

Not, then, to Heroes only, to Poet, Statesman, King,
Let care of future glory its anxious duties bring;

There is no name so lowly, that may not raise a shrine
Of living hearts, to honour its memory as Divine!

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