Begotten

“ Forgetfulness is what I wish for, yes. But there is no forgetfulness except in death—no Lethe save the Styx.”
“No forgetfulness except in death? You assume, then, that there is forgetfulness in death; a bold assumption. Have you no dread of something after death, the undiscovered country? Do you ignore the possibility of a future life? Suppose, beyond the grave, you preserve your identity—that is to say, your memory: in what respect will you have gained by the change?”
“I must take my risks. This much I know for certain: there is no forgetfulness in life. In death there may be. ”

“ Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
In thy forgotten grave—with secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
When I remember thou hast given for me
All that thou hast, thy life, thy very name. ”

“ Old memories throng upon the heart—memories of early, happy days, and of the loved and lost. The lost—ah, too soon did some die in their young beauty, whilst others dropped, like ripe fruit, into the tomb. ”

“ When thou dost wake again to life,
Wilt thou awake to weep?
If thou rememberest aught of past,
Thou mayst perhaps regret
The flowers, and trees, now dead and gone,
And for them mourn e’en yet.
A generation will have passed;
A new one thou wilt greet;
All will be strangers unto thee,
No friend of past thou’lt meet. ”

“ And now I only remember my dead Joy in remembering my dead Sorrow. But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.
"THE PERFECT WORLD"
God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods, hear me:
Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear me:
I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect. ”

“ When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the Present, I cling to the Past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled,
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead:
Bright visions of glory—that vanished too soon ”

“ Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it,
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is pain. ”

“ Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombéd in men's eyes shall lie. ”

“ When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack, Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back, With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed, Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead! ”

“ And so the past becomes a mountain-cell,
Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell
In consecrated calm, forgotten yet
Of the keen heart that hastens to forget
Old longings in fulfilling new desires. ”

“ If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections,—to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? ”

“ She had forgotten that night until lately—forgotten her tears, her doubts, her hesitation; but, as at the day of judgment the scroll of our lives will be unfolded before us, so even in this world there are times when part of the history is remembered by us, when the thoughts and the resolutions of the long ago, appear before us like unwelcome ghosts. ”

“ For no sooner are we gone hence than, even for such brief times as our memories may endure, we are apt to grow by processes of accumulative transformation into what we never were. Thou kind, kind fate, therefore—never enough named and celebrated—that biddest the sun of memory rise on our finished but imperfect lives, and then lengthenest or shortenest the little day of posthumous reminiscence, according as thou seest there is need of early twilight or of deeper shadows! ”

“ All that made life lovely is gone—youth, fortune, and household gods. My children are in bloody graves—she who bore them preceded them to eternity; yet I live on, and sigh, and remember, while imagination peoples with the past the scenes about me. ”

“ What an interesting and varied picture do these dates present to my mind's eye, and how many remembrances are associated with them of joy and sorrow, of trial and happiness! I could willingly spend hours in recalling all in detail, and I feel as if it would do us both good, should I do so; for I find that, in the full occupation of the present, the lessons of the past are losing their power over me. Their voice cannot be heard in the busy bustle of life ”

“ We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight upon midnight,—
"The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme."
This is its simple meaning—the statement of a truth, the utterance of personal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance—it is the revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the dead elements of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and so breathed upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. ”

“ They are like the history of the past sublimated by the eloquence of immutable truth, and are sanctified by a sleep that has eternal life within its closed lids. They have, too, a sympathy in retort with us. ”

“ Their faces were pale and thoughtful, and a shadow had fallen on their spirits—the shadow that always fell when they were reminded of the Varians.
Memory was poison to their hearts.
“My heart hath but one passion
To forget.
Ah, is there nothing in the world then
To take away the soul’s divine regret?” ”

“ I give a deep interpretation to a custom used in many countries at funerals where a violin is played at the head of the coffin, and questions are addressed to the deceased in the course of which it is customary to ask pardon for having injured or offended the departed one during life. My questions are all framed and have been, lo these many years. The dead past has not buried its dead. Memory makes the present sacred with a light, like that of the stars which has been many years on its way. ”

“ Shall we never know more of them than Runic stones and mysterious mounds can unfold? These reminders of the things that once had an existence but have now vanished from the face of the earth, and well nigh from the memory of men—these things are full of suggestion, to say the least, and are quite apt to correct any undue vanity which may take possession of us, or any large idea of future fame. We may, perhaps, create a ripple in the surface of remembrance which marks the place where our human existence went out, and which, at the furthest, may last a few hundred years. ”

“ Dimly out of the past would appear the faces of men and women—long since dead and already only vaguely remembered—the companions of his youth, once individually vibrant with the current of life, now moldering alike in forgotten graves. ”

“ Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime. But, if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay— If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away— Me let no half-effaced memories cumber! ”

“ Imagination only can recall the details of the event, so sad and awful. In the darkness of night the sons hasten to the new-made grave, throw off the slight covering of earth, and by the feeble light of a lantern discover the remains. ”

“ Man-ch‘ing, thy birth gave a hero, thy death a God! Like the vulgar herd thou wast born and didst die, returning to the domain of nothingness. But thy earthly form could not perish like theirs. There was that within which could not decay: thy bright memory will endure through all generations. ”

“ Your unattained ambitions, your hopes, and your ideals will be swallowed in the grave. Your works will secure you a place in history, and many will remember your names until, in time, oblivion covers your memory as the grass conceals your tombs. Are you prepared for the time when your eyes become blind, and your trusted senses fail? ”

“ Our noblest dead, to judge from the most impassioned and inspired utterances of the men who have suffered for us, would bid us indeed remember these things,—remember them with all the intensity of which we are capable—but with few words. ”

“ If He be lying dead in a forgotten grave, and hath not 'ascended up on high,' then there can come from His history and past nothing other in kind, though, perhaps, a little more in degree, than comes from the history and the past of the beautiful and white souls that have sometimes lived in the world. ”

“ Where there is memory which compelleth Time, the Muses' mother, and the Muses nine, there are all ages, past and future time,—unwearied memory that does not forget the actions of the past, that does not forego to stamp them freshly, that Old Mortality, industrious to retouch the monuments of time, in the world's cemetery throughout every clime. ”

“ Mine eyes to the hunt, and my soul afar-
I was stone; but I waked with the heart of a man.
WHEN ONE FORGETS When one forgets, the old things are as dead things;
The grey leaves fall, and eyes that saw their May
Turn from them now, and voices that have said things
Wherein Life joyed, alas! are still to-day—
When one forgets. ”

“ Pause not on the threshold of the one dark memory that blasts the soul and sears the heart in the secret hours of night. Let the dead past bury its dead and if one must think, let it be of the hope, which the remembrance of that short glimpse into a pure if infantile soul has given to his long darkened spirit. ”

“ In tracing back the associations of many gone-by years, a host of thoughts rush in, and pensive remembrance of the dead who have labored with us casts deep shadows into the vista through which we view the past. ”

“ Will he ne'er come again?
Ah no, he is dead and laid in his grave,
For ever to remain.
'His cheek was redder than the rose;
The comeliest youth was he;
But he is dead and laid in his grave:
Alas, and woe is me!'
'Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more;
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot on sea and one on land,
To one thing constant never. ”

“ Croakers to the contrary notwithstanding, there is in the record of our past lives, or in the prophecy of our future, another word than grief or care; it is joy. My friend, could your history be truthfully written, and printed in the old style, are there not many passages that would shine beautifully in golden letters? I say truthfully written; for we are so apt to forget our joys, while we remember our griefs. ”

“ You can only dimly remember the phantom’s shape and where he walked, and half doubt 396the dream in which he denizened and dissolved from sight. But still the gulf of vision swarms with realities—with beings where the play of life and death, joy and grief, wealth and want, are the portion of the living and the legacy of the dead. ”

“ Very pale their shadows rise before us--the shadows of our young brothers who have sinned and suffered. From the sea and the sod, from foreign graves and English churchyards, they start up and throng around us in the paleness of their fall. May every schoolboy who reads this page be warned by the waving of their wasted hands, from that burning marle of passion, where they found nothing but shame and ruin, polluted affections, and an early grave. ”

“ Let one of our loved ones be taken away, and memory recalls a thousand sayings to regret. Death quickens recollection painfully. The grave {550} can not hide the white face of the one who sleeps. The coffin and the green mound are cruel magnets. They draw us further than we would go. They force us to remember. A man never sees so far into human life as when he looks over a wife's or a mother's grave. ”

“ To drag into light the skeleton of old days, and by the light thus thrown upon it to see that it is only a skeleton, that, once beheld, should be buried and its old bones forgotten. You are too much of a man, Felt, to waste away in these wilds. Come! forget I am a stranger, and relieve yourself and me by opening these tablets you speak of, even if it does cost you a pang of the old sorrow. The talk we have had has already made a flutter in the long-closed leaves, and should I leave you this minute you could not smother the thoughts and memories to which our conversation has given rise. ”

“ His memory will never die until time shall be no more. The tears of a sorrowing people will water the sod that covers the remains of their loved magistrate; and from every blade of grass that grows, and from the leaf of every flower that blooms upon his grave, an avenging spirit shall arise to demand requital for the damnation of his taking-off. ”

“ It is not a new bereavement, but one which has softened, that brings us here. We meet not around a newly opened grave, but among those which Nature has already decorated with the memorials of her love. ”

“ The dead know not anything, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished, neither have they a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun. ”

“ The very word makes one think of mourning rings, and everlasting flowers, and urns, and mementoes of all sorts. Why are people so afraid of forgetting? There is nothing more beautiful than to forget, except, perhaps, to be forgotten. ”

“ We sit in the unemotional shade, and slake our thirst for the old joys and sorrows by fondly recalling the ghosts of dead hours and dead dreams, of forgotten faiths and dim-remembered faces; and though we may not desire to re-live each year with its burden of pains and pangs, surely we may tell ourselves that it is good to have lived those past years, even if tears seem the most prominent part of our inheritance. ”