StoryTitle("caps", "A Name in the Sand") ?>
Name in the Sand," by Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865), is a poem to
correct our ready overestimate of our own importance.
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Alone I walked the ocean strand;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A pearly shell was in my hand:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I stooped and wrote upon the sand", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "My name—the year—the day.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As onward from the spot I passed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "One lingering look behind I cast;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A wave came rolling high and fast,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And washed my lines away.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And so, methought, 'twill shortly be", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With every mark on earth from me:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A wave of dark oblivion's sea", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Will sweep across the place", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where I have trod the sandy shore", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of time, and been, to be no more,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of me—my day—the name I bore,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "To leave nor track nor trace.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And yet, with Him who counts the sands", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And holds the waters in His hands,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I know a lasting record stands", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Inscribed against my name,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of all this mortal part has wrought,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Of all this thinking soul has thought,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And from these fleeting moments caught", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For glory or for shame.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Hannah Flagg Gould.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>