A MEMORY.
Reading edition
"Indulgent Memory wakes, and, lo! they live!" —RODGERS
Deathless, while the years are flying, And all lesser hopes are dying. To my widowed heart near lying By a life-time's love embalmed, Is a memory, dear and tender, And in dreams its bygone splendour Sweetest, holiest, balm can render To my grief, by Time uncalmed.
In life's morning, young and early Glistening fair through dew-drops pearly, Burst a bud that promised fairly Through the length of future days. Ah! it charmed my passion'd dreaming, Bathed in beauty's brightness, beaming Fadeless still, and deathless seeming In fond Hope's delusive haze.
And, as when in wild December, June's calm twilights we remember, So this dream in shadowy splendour
Ever haunts my lonely way; And I see in fond delusion, Glowing as in light Elysian, The entrancing, old-time vision Doom'd so early to decay.
Days when Hope, how false! still flaunted Through my dreamings, love enchanted, Framed by busy Fancy, haunted By glad visions of delight,— Morns of light, and sunsets golden, Dreams of legends, grand and olden, Hopes for future years, withholden From our youthful, yearning sight.
Past and gone! Ah! vain my sighing,— Hope's dead leaves are round me lying, But their fragrances, undying, Like a hallowed incense rise; And I feel, with joy unspoken, That the spirit love unbroken Leaves this Memory for a token Of its truth, that never dies.
In that land whose beauty vernal Through tried ages blooms eternal Thou, in bliss undreamed, supernal Baskest in the glory-light Where celestial joys inspire All heaven's vast, unnumbered choir With sweet songs that never tire, Through the fadeless summer bright.
Here, how sad this dreary roaming, Through the shadows of earth's gloaming, Waiting for the longed-for coming Of the lingering Morning Star; But swift time is onward fleeting— Backward is the past retreating, Nearer, nearer draws our meeting In the future, dim and far.