No token of the toil

 “Build me a grave beside the sea”

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Build me a grave beside the sea,

Heap the brown earth over me

Upon a cliff above the sea.

Build it broad and high my mound,

That ships hereafter homeward bound

May mark afar my seaward mound:

A cavernous enclosed pit,

Sad heavy earth piled over it —

Of memory a symbol fit,

A fitting and a final end,

For now there’s no more tale to spend,

This is the end, this is the end!

Raw at first and torn and red

As though the earth had with me bled,

Slowly the green shall hide the red,

And, as your tears shall slowly dry,

And as you one by one shall die

And your springing songs of me shall dry

Till gently my name new men forget

The rains and dews shall the barrow wet

And greener and smoother it will get,

While Earth by stages slow unseen

Dissolves it, reshapes it to what has been,

Till nothing unkindred to the cliffs is seen,

No token of the toil and death of men,

Scarce a swelling of the grass — what then!

What if the Earth is filled with unknown men!