The young in olden years,
Unaware of the fires we keep,
Will have eyes that will not see,
And ears that will not hear.
And blindness, deafness, and decay
Will come like a thief in the night,
And snatch what we’ve made of life’s plight.

And the crown and regalia
That we’ll have worked for and acquired,
Reduced to empty, meaningless reminders,
Whose splendor we’ll leave in the tomb —
As our memorized imprints expire.

We’ll be forgotten and gone —
Till the children of our foes
Break out in mocking laughter
In new times, new eras, and new prose.

At our grave, and in the future
The poetically riddle the ages:
They’ll see our crumbled and broken
And flattened and buried remains —
And promptly forget, their children again
Will gaily and merrily play,
And run and chase each other,
And fight playfully in the sun.

They’ll start to laugh and then to cry —
To wrestle and then to cuddle,
And relive our lives again,
And some will grow up to be
The leaders and lawmakers of men,
And some grow to be thinkers, and some
to become healers and teachers;
And some grow to be doers and dreamers,
Who’re the architects and makers of men.
They’ll be different, chasing their glory,
Each with their own script, each with their own story.

They’ll play their parts as we’ve played ours;
And they’ll learn from each other, and laugh and cry.
It will be, as ephemeral as it has been, as it has been —
Roles passed on as new eras do dawn,
Life goes on, and on, and on.

And the cycle will repeat itself —
The cycle of life, and love, and death.
As we’re forgotten and bygone —
They’ll be gone, and gone, and gone.

Our stories will be but a page —
A small footnote at the end of the book —
but forgotten by the sequel,
and the sequel’s sequel,
and that sequel’s sequel.

But the story will go on; and the book —
A bigger story, grander each time —
Will repeat, and repeat, and repeat.