Poems About Memories

When I have borne in memory what has tamedGreat nations; how ennobling thoughts departWhen men change swords for ledgers, and desertThe student's bower for gold,--some fears unnamed

I had, my Country!--am I to be blamed?Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,Verily, in the bottom of my heartOf those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

For dearly must we prize thee; we who findIn thee a bulwark of the cause of men;And I by my affection was beguiled:

What wonder if a Poet now and then,Among the many movements of his mind,Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

I am undone: there is no living, none,If Bertram be away. It were all one,That I should love a bright particular star,And think to wed it, he is so above me:In his bright radiance and collateral lightMust I be comforted, not in his sphere.The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:The hind that would be mated by the lionMust die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,To see him every hour; to sit and drawHis arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,In our heart's table,--heart too capableOf every line and trick of his sweet favor:But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancyMust sanctify his relics.

O memory, thou fond deceiver, Still importunate and vain,To former joys recurring ever, And turning all the past to pain:

Thou, like the world, th’ oppress’d oppressing, Thy smiles increase the wretch’s woe:And he who wants each other blessing In thee must ever find a foe.

When I am old, and think of the old days,And warm my hands before a little blaze,Having forgotten love, hope, fear, desire,I shall see, smiling out of the pale fire,One face, mysterious and exquisite;And I shall gaze, and ponder over it,Wondering, was it Leonardo wroughtThat stealthy ardency, where passionate thoughtBurns inward, a revealing flame, and glowsTo the last ecstasy, which is repose?Was it Bronzino, those Borghese eyes?And, musing thus among my memories,O unforgotten! you will come to seem,As pictures do, remembered, some old dream.And I shall think of you as something strange,And beautiful, and full of helpless change,Which I beheld and carried in my heart;But you, I loved, will have become a partOf the eternal mystery, and loveLike a dim pain; and I shall bend aboveMy little fire, and shiver, being cold,When you are no more young, and I am old.

A place in thy memory, Dearest!Is all that I claim:To pause and look back when thou hearestThe sound of my name.Another may woo thee, nearer;Another may win and wear:I care not though he be dearer,If I am remembered there.

Remember me, not as a loverWhose hope was crossed,Whose bosom can never recoverThe light it hath lost!

The night walked down the skyWith the moon in her hand;By the light of that yellow lanternI saw you stand.

The hair that swept your shouldersWas yellow, too,Your feet as they touched the grassesShamed the dew.

The Night wore all her jewels,And you wore none,But your gown had the odor of liliesDrenched with sun.

And never was Eve of the GardenOr Mary the MaidMore pure than you as you stood thereBold, yet afraid.

And the sleeping birds woke, trembling,And the folded flowers were aware,And my senses were faint with the fragrantGold of your hair.

And our lips found ways of speakingWhat words cannot say,Till a hundred nests gave music,And the East was gray.

When wasteful death has closed the Poet's eyes,And low in earth his mortal essence lies;When the bright flame, that once his breast inspired,Has to its first, its noblest seat retired;All worthy minds, whom love of merit sways,Should shade from slander his respected bays;And bid that fame, his useful labours won,Pure and untainted through all ages run. Envy's a fiend all excellence pursues,But mostly poets favour'd by the Muse;Who wins the laurel, sacred verse bestows,Makes all, who fail in like attempts, his foes;

And where is truth? On tombs? for such to theeHas been my heart--and thy dead memoryHas lain from childhood, many a changeful year,Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

***

WHERE Blackmoor was, the road that led To Bath, she could not show,Nor point the sky that overspread Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way, Cape Horn there figured fell,That here was Boston, here Bombay, She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart Froom Mead or Yell’ham WoodThan how to make some Austral port In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea’s shore Behind the plum-tree nigh,Heard old unruly Biscay’s roar In the weir’s purl hard by . . .

“My son’s a sailor, and he knows All seas and many lands,And when he’s home he points and shows Each country where it stands.

“He’s now just there—by Gib’s high rock— And when he gets, you see,To Portsmouth here, behind the clock, Then he’ll come back to me!”

WHEN the spring comes round, and a certain dayLooks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees And says, Remember, I begin again, as if it were new, A day of like date I once lived through, Whiling it hour by hour away; So shall I do till my December, When spring comes round.

I take my holiday then and my restAway from the dun life here about me, Old hours re-greeting With the quiet sense that bring they must Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust, And in the numbness my heartsome zest For things that were, be past repeating When spring comes round.

THE fire advances along the log Of the tree we felled, Which bloomed and bore striped apples by the peck Till its last hour of bearing knelled.

The fork that first my hand would reach And then my foot In climbings upward inch by inch, lies now Sawn, sapless, darkening with soot.

Where the bark chars is where, one year, It was pruned, and bled— Then overgrew the wound. But now, at last, Its growings all have stagnated.

My fellow-climber rises dim From her chilly grave— Just as she was, her foot near mine on the bending limb, Laughing, her young brown hand awave.

December 1915.

“O MEMORY, where is now my youth,Who used to say that life was truth?”

“I saw him in a crumbled cot Beneath a tottering tree;That he as phantom lingers there Is only known to me.”

“O Memory, where is now my joy,Who lived with me in sweet employ?”

“I saw him in gaunt gardens lone, Where laughter used to be;That he as phantom wanders there Is known to none but me.”

THAT “Sacred to the Memory”Is clearly carven there I own,And all may think that on the stoneThe words have been inscribed by meIn bare conventionality.

They know not and will never knowThat my full script is not confinedTo that stone space, but stands deep linedUpon the landscape high and lowWherein she made such worthy show.

SILENTLY I footed by an uphill road That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward, And dark was the east with cloud.

Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east, Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide,Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it, Like a brief blaze on that side.

Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant— The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene;It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there, Turning to the road from his green,

To take his last journey forth—he who in his prime Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way, As with a wave of his hand.

If I ever go back to Baltimore,The city of Maryland,I shall miss again as I missed beforeA thousand things of the world in store,The story standing in every doorThat beckons with every hand.

I shall not know where the bonds were rivenAnd a hundred faiths set free,Where a wandering cavalier had givenHer hundredth name to the Queen of Heaven,And made oblation of feuds forgivenTo Our Lady of Liberty.

I shall not travel the tracks of fameWhere the war was not to the strong;When Lee the last of the heroes cameWith the Men of the South and a flag like flame,And called the land by its lovely nameIn the unforgotten song.

If ever I cross the sea and strayTo the city of Maryland,I will sit on a stone and watch or prayFor a stranger's child that was there one day:And the child will never come back to play,And no-one will understand.

Heavens above! here’s an old tie of yours--Sea-green dragons stamped on a golden ground.Ha! Ha! Ha! What children we were in those days.

Do you love me enough to wear it now?Have you the courage of your pristine glories?Ha! Ha! Ha! You laugh and shrug your shoulders.

Those were the days when a new tie spelt a fortune:We wore it in turn--I flaunted it as a waist-belt.Ha! Ha! Ha! What easily satisfied babies.

“I think I’ll turn it into a piano duster.”“Give it to me, I’ll polish my slippers on it!”Ha! Ha! Ha! The rag’s not worth the dustbin.

“Throw the shabby old thing right out of the window;Fling it into the faces of other children!”Ha! Ha! Ha! We laughed and laughed till the tears came!

Yes! Daniel, faithful Daniel's gone,His weeping flock lament their loss;No more they fix their eyes uponThat zealous preacher of the cross!

No more he meets them at the gate,No breezes waft his silver'd hair,While o'er the dead, both small and great,His soul breathes out the ardent prayer!

Nor from his eye, when grave-scenes call,His streaming tears are seen to flow,--Those tears, which to the earth did fall,And mingle with the dust below.

No more he at the altar stands,To bless, or break the hallow'd bread,While from his lips and lifted hands,Each hungry, holy soul is fed!

But mingled happy saints among,His ravish'd soul doth now ascend,To share that bliss which he so long,To others here did recommend.