Memory

She crouches in the caves of thought Enchantress, brooding o’er the fire, And those her mystic charms have sought Shall sometime gain their heart’s desire. With mumblings and averted gaze She weaves her spells, while to and fro Like shadows from the mounting blaze, Upon the walls there come and go The scenes of far off happier days Faint visions of the long ago. The eastern tyrant steals in dead of night Down rock hewn stairs and through an iron door; And feasts his eyes by flaring torch’s light Upon the wealth heaped on his treasury floor; On bursting sacks of coin, caskets of gems Scepters of ruby, diamond diadems, A kingdom’s plunder. We, like him, have stored Our hidden wealth, and memory keeps the key, No jewels lustreless, are in our hoard But trophies of a richer dynasty, The sweet experiences that time endears Sifted and winnowed gleanings of the years. With halting steps and labored breath we climb The attic stairs and rummage sadly through The toys and trifling things our childhood knew, Until our brooding thoughts are lost to time, And like the dust motes dancing in the beams Come thronging memories through a mist of dreams. Forth from an aged tome there falls a flower Faded and crumbling, yet its petals glow, Once more in the sweet memory of that hour When loving fingers gave it long ago. As through the spectral city of the dead With downcast eyes and reverential tread We note the broken columns and the urns In marble draped, and e’er our gaze returns To our own name graved on the granite bare The death date blank - yet it will soon be there! Then Memory leads us with a sad, sweet smile Among those grass grown mounds. On many a stone Are names of those we loved - A little while And we shall be with them among our own. We seem to hear their welcoming voices ring; A whisper comes - “O death where is thy sting?” Alone we came into this world - alone We venture forth. And recollections fond Are all that we may bear to the beyond To lay, some day, before a great white throne! Our life has been a path forlorn that winds Forever on through gnarled and twisted years Of forest gloom. A path that memory finds And helps us trace it backward through our tears. Upon a beechen trunk, deep in the bark Two carven hearts by single arrow cleft: How many years since youth, with ardent hand Inscribed them there. Two hearts and one bereft! In the long autumn afternoons we go By russet moors and watch the slanting rays Bathe all the landscape with a golden haze That melts its harsher outlines. Thus the flow Of years has smoothed away each grief and pain Of childhood and life’s later bitterness, While Memory, with a witching tenderness, Has glorified the things that still remain. In pensive revery our fancy turns Out to the west where the red sunset burns, Fain would we ponder when our sun may set And yield to the sad sweetness of regret, But Memory thrills with wild ecstasies Before that miracle of blazing skies. In awe we gaze as lengthening shadows loom And night peers forth. But Memory hovers near We clutch her fingers in the deepening gloom And trembling hang upon her words of cheer, Till with a hopeful glance she points afar Where, like a gem on velvet, gleams a star! We stand aghast beneath the vaulted dome Aglitter with creation’s rhapsodies The countless stars. And let our fancy roam Through space unfathomed, past the Pleiades Out to the deeps beyond. Until the veil That shuts us from the past seems strangely stirred And recollections vague - beyond the pale - Flit through our brain, half thoughts confused and blurred. A former life upon some sunnier sphere! Things long forgot and dimly sensed again Far off, for one rapt moment hover near. We strive to clutch them, but we strive in vain. Does Memory mock us, or in fear perchance Shield us from some grim Terror’s Gorgon glance That glares unseen, from out the dark! Farflung A wisp of cloud darts like a dragon’s tongue And laps Orion’s belt. At glowing dawn The constellations fade - the veil is drawn! The blood stained trail of history winds away Through ruined cities and past crumbling walls Half buried, where the tottering columns sway To winds that blunder through the vacant halls. Beyond lie relics of remoter time Dolmens and cromlechs, monoliths of stone Inscriptions weird and uncouth monsters carved On cavern walls, and bits of splintered bone Traced when the hairy mammoth ranged among Wild fens and woodlands when the world was young. For all the runes inscribed on History’s page As Time’s slow finger etched them age by age For our dim eyes to see, Are but the priceless, deathless heritage Of Memory. The traveler venturing into deserts grim That shimmer on the hot horizon’s rim, Does battle with the demons of the heat While sands like burning fingers, claw his feet But other wayfarers have braved the wrath Of scorching wastes - their bones still mark the path! Our counsellor and guide, calm Memory holds The golden balances whose scale unfolds The wisdom of the tried - experience true. The balance trembles, what ought we to do? It dips, it falls, the standard points the way Today’s decisions rest on yesterday. Upon the shores of Time’s vast sea we stand And peer into the gathering mists that rise Dark and portentious before our eyes, While through our fingers slip the grains of sand. We know the waves advancing, will not stay But wash our stumbling footprints all away. Into that sea have sailed the winged hours Like argosies by youthful fancy sent On joyous quest to some far Orient Created in our dreams, pagoda’d towers To bold adventure beckoning gaily on, While tropic skies lent their romantic lure. But those exotic hours, alas, have gone And broken memories alone endure. O time may rob us of our dearest friends. But not our memories! The present blends Into the vanished vistas of the past. Riches have taken wings but at the last A pittance left us. Old, we yet may drink From youth’s eternal fount. A golden link Still binds us with the loved we see no more. The lamp lit circle on our chamber floor Our little kingdom bounds. Within its space Our eyes, through Memory’s magic, see a face That shed, long years ago, a reliance there, A form adorned that graced a vacant chair. How rich and full was life, how barren now! Forsaken in our poverty we bow To Fate’s decree. But in despairing mood Kind Memory, pitying, shares our solitude. Are memories but the vain desire For happier hours that once were mine? The embers of a dying fire. The dwindled lees of life’s rich wine? Or echoes from a seraph’s lyre But lightly touched by hands divine?