Calverly's

The Town Down the River (1910)

Calverly’s

We go no more to Calverly’s,For there the lights are few and low;And who are there to see by them,Or what they see, we do not know.Poor strangers of another tongueMay now creep in from anywhere,And we, forgotten, be no moreThan twilight on a ruin there.

We two, the remnant. All the restAre cold and quiet. You nor I,May ring them back from where they lie.No fame delays oblivionFor them, but something yet survives:A record written fair, could weBut read the book of scattered lives.

There’ll be a page for Leffingwell,And one for Lingard, the Moon-calf;And who knows what for Clavering,Who died because he couldn’t laugh?Who knows or cares? No sign is here,No face, no voice, no memory;No Lingard with his eerie joy,No Clavering, no Calverly.

We cannot have them here with usTo say where their light lives are gone,Or if they be of other stuffThan are the moons of Ilion.So, be their place of one estateWith ashes, echoes, and old wars, —Or ever we be of the night,Or we be lost among the stars.