'Heredity'

I am the family face; 
Flesh perishes, I live on, 
Projecting trait and trace 
Through time to times anon, 
And leaping from place to place 
Over oblivion. 

The years-heired feature that can 
In curve and voice and eye 
Despise the human span 
Ofdurance--that is I; 
The eternal thing in man, 
That heeds no call to die. 

Thomas Hardy