THE profit of my living long ago I dedicated to the unloving dead, Though all my service they shall never know Whose world is vanished and their name unsaid. For none remembers now the good, the ill They did, the deeds they thought should last for aye; But in the little room my voice can fill They shall not be forgotten till I die. So, in a lonely churchyard by the shore, The sea winds drift the sand across the mounds And those forgotten graves are found no more, And no man knows the churchyard's holy bounds; Till one come by and stoop with reverent hands To clear the graves of their encumbering sands. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JULY IN GEORGY by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: A DEAD STATESMAN by RUDYARD KIPLING FOR CHARLIE'S SAKE by JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER THE DAYS GONE BY by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY IF WE KNEW; OR, BLESSINGS OF TO-DAY by MAY LOUISE RILEY SMITH |