The To-be-forgotten BY THOMAS HARDY

 The To-be-forgotten

BY THOMAS HARDY

I

I heard a small sad sound,

And stood awhile among the tombs around:

"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,

Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II

—"O not at being here;

But that our future second death is near;

When, with the living, memory of us numbs,

And blank oblivion comes!

III

"These, our sped ancestry,

Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;

Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry

With keenest backward eye.

IV

"They count as quite forgot;

They are as men who have existed not;

Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;

It is the second death.

V

"We here, as yet, each day

Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say

We hold in some soul loved continuance

Of shape and voice and glance.

VI

"But what has been will be —

First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea;

Like men foregone, shall we merge into those

Whose story no one knows.

VII

"For which of us could hope

To show in life that world-awakening scope

Granted the few whose memory none lets die,

But all men magnify?

VIII

"We were but Fortune's sport;

Things true, things lovely, things of good report

We neither shunned nor sought ... We see our bourne,

And seeing it we mourn."

A Broken Appointment BY THOMAS HARDY

A Broken Appointment

BY THOMAS HARDY

You did not come,

And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—

Yet less for loss of your dear presence there

Than that I thus found lacking in your make

That high compassion which can overbear

Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake

Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,

You did not come.

You love not me,

And love alone can lend you loyalty;

–I know and knew it. But, unto the store

Of human deeds divine in all but name,

Was it not worth a little hour or more

To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be

You love not me?

Harmonia - Cass McCombs

Harmonia - Cass McCombs

Friend of mine
Let me show you
How the days in-between
Have become so few

Friend of mine
United by dream
Make me a part of you
And I will you of me

Friend of mine, forever
Let us travel high
To understand not only
The how but the why

Friend of mine
Fades to black
Does this belong to you?
I pull the knife from my back

I lept from the cliff into a pool of Jersey river water
The psilocybin began its effects
I smashed my arm and my leg on the rock going down
But when I rose from the depths, and nearly death
What a friendly world I found!

A friend is the end
A friend is the end
A friend is the end