Memory of the Dead

By George Sterling

O thou that walkest with the quiet dead,
    And keepest vigil in the darkness cast
    Around the portals of the ruined past,
What the strange glory set about thy head,

That we, tho' other lands were surely fair,
    Should wander with thee in thy shadow-lands,
    And yearning, grope for unresponsive hands,
And faces vaguer for the twilight there?

For thou art risen from the ghostly sea
    Of tears of many sorrows. Ah! but when
    We turn aside to rest with Joy again,
We pause, we sigh, we wander yet with thee.
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