Writing History

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.