Poems (Kimball)/"Save that there may be one love-garnering Breast"
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"SAVE THAT THERE MAY BE ONE LOVE-GARNERING BREAST."
SAVE that there may be one love-garnering breast
Will hold us unforgotten when we die,
From all the paths that most familiar lie
We shall be missed but few brief days at best.
Noteless as noiseless pass we to our rest;
Slip from the ear and tongue as from the eye.
Earth knows no break, no change to signify
Absence or loss; and Time and Nature, lest
In our behalf remonstrant they appear,
Make stealthy haste to blur and cover o'er
The stone's laborious lettering before
The yielding mound that settles year by year
Is levelled, and the place—our last place here—
That knew us once knows us indeed no more.
Will hold us unforgotten when we die,
From all the paths that most familiar lie
We shall be missed but few brief days at best.
Noteless as noiseless pass we to our rest;
Slip from the ear and tongue as from the eye.
Earth knows no break, no change to signify
Absence or loss; and Time and Nature, lest
In our behalf remonstrant they appear,
Make stealthy haste to blur and cover o'er
The stone's laborious lettering before
The yielding mound that settles year by year
Is levelled, and the place—our last place here—
That knew us once knows us indeed no more.