Forgotten Bards

                              I.
Oh for one triumph o'er the remorseless grave!
     A power to startle from their slumbers cold 
     The long-forgotten, unknown Bards of old!
To stir the dark depths of the Lethean wave, 
The buried glories from its floods to save,
     And wrecks o'er which unnoted years have rolled
     Their deep and darkening torrents! Long untold,
In the dun chambers of the Past, have slept 
Poets whose hands to burning numbers swept 
     The answering lyre, while yet no echoes come 
To tell their glory to succeeding time, 
     And the loud trump of fickle Fame is dumb, 
Which might have lent to every age and clime 
Their names, forgotten now, and glorious songs sublime.

                              II.
Crownless they sieep, and man knows not their place,
     Or that they were. The visions which had stirred
     Their souls to poesy, when no voice was heard
To mock unspeakable thoughts, have not a trace
Amid the ruins of that unknown race, 
     But all is darkness, and there comes no word
     To mark their glory from the countless herd.
Oh, DEATH!—grim sentinel!—unlock thy grave—
And thou, dread Time from thy unfathomed wave,
     Yield up the buried Minstrels, on whose lyres
Such songs have trembled as had mocked thy breath,
     But that the hand of Ruin swept the wires,
With one rude stroke, and snapt them. Give, O, Death!
Give back one name of all thou’st trampled in thy path!

                              III.
Forgotten Bards! your harps are lost, and fled
     Is the last ray of fame which round you shone,
     When ye had deemed her garlands were your own;
And from the crowded mansions of the dead,
There comes no echo to your kingly tread, 
     But all is dumb. Yet while to Glory's throne 
     Our thousands crowd above your graves unknown,
Our deeds unknown—our very names forgot;
     And as the waves close over us, a new
And coming race shall crowd above the spot,
Live and depart like us, and be remembered not.