Classic Poem

Not with a snarl of bronze and a crackle of drums,
Not as a clean blade clips a cord asunder,
Nor in such other forthright guise death comes
To quench the flame and plough the compost under.
Rather we die in ways obscure and little.
I am less man this hour than yesterday;
More than I shall be soon. The slow years whittle,
With rusty knives, body and brain away.

Some day above these bones, a granite lie,
My unimportant name may stand in stone.
Fools, I have died these decades past, and I
Am ash in tombs unnumbered and unknown,
Spoil of the seas, prey to the wind's dissection,
Scattered too far for any resurrection.