by Witter Bynner
A time comes when a majority of those you remember
Are not among the living but among the dead.
Some of them went down long ago on the Titanic.
Justus Miles Forman, for instance.
Who now besides me remembers him, 1
That tall suave presence with slim waist and pomaded words,
That dark edge of a jungle in exact clothes,
And Charles Frohman, that dumpling of finance with a heart
nonetheless,
And who else vanished suddenly on the Titanic
?
But was it the Titanic after all?
And is it not always as sudden?
Is it not a shadow springing at you round a corner of the street,
The immense imminence of nothing on something?
There is no answer save the vibrations of a voice which happens to be
living
And might just as well happen to be dead.
From:
Uncollected Poems
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