First Ghost <br /> <br />To sepulcher my mouldy bones <br />I bough a pile of noble stones, <br />And half a year a sculptor spent <br />To hew my marble monument, <br />The stateliest to rear its head <br />In all this city of the dead. <br /> <br />And generations passing through <br />Will gape, and ask: What did he do <br />To earn this tomb so rich and rare, <br />In Attic grace beyond compare? <br />How was his life in honour spent, <br />To worthy this proud monument? <br /> <br />What did I do" Well, nothing much. <br />'Tis true I had the Midas touch. <br />A million pounds I made wherewith <br />To glorify the name: John Smith; <br />Yet not a soul wept for me when <br />Death raft me from my fellow men. <br />My sculptor wins undying fame, <br />While I, who paid, am just a name. <br /> <br />Second Ghost <br /> <br />A wooden cross surveys my bones, <br />With on it stenciled: Peter Jones. <br />And round it are five hundred more; <br />(A proper job did old man War!) <br />So young they were, so fresh, so fit, <br />So hopeful - that's the hell of it. <br /> <br />The old are sapped and ripe to die, <br />But in the flush of Spring was I. <br />I might have fathered children ten, <br />To come to grips with sterling men; <br />And now a cross in weeds to rot, <br />Is all to show how fierce I fought. <br /> <br />The old default, the young must pay; <br />My life was wasted, thrown away. <br />While people gladden, to forget <br />The bitterness of vein regret, <br />With not a soul to morn for me <br />My skull grins up in mockery. <br />. . . Pale crosses greet the grieving stars, <br />And always will be - War and Wars.<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-graves/
