Endings and Conclusions

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet Eighteen he compares
a treasured life to Nature’s summer day,
not that the endless Cosmos knows or cares
how mortals eulogize those gone away.
Lives end, but do their stories then conclude
if later generations pass along
to other lives who, in their interlude,
preserve in memory a timeless song?
Three quatrains and a couplet mark one scheme
for organizing fourteen lines of verse,
impressing on our minds not just a dream
but hope for Life unsullied by Death’s curse.
Attempts to end life stories often fail.
An ended life does not conclude The Tale.