Poems (Brown)/Memory
For works with similar titles, see Memory.
MEMORY.
Faded and worn are the pictures to-night Memory brings from her storehouse to me;Weary and sad, tear-stained and bleared, From her dark castle over the sea.
As I bask in the glow of the moon to-night Pale phantoms group in the hall,Some with countenance worn and sad, And I fancy my name they call.
O, give me the scenes of youthful days, I then was a gladsome child;And stream, and hill, and wood, and dell Echoed to my laughter wild.
But now another scene doth rise, Dimmed with both pain and sorrow;When Hope hath meekly folded her hands, And sighed for a brighter to-morrow.
Pale Memory brings her gifts to me From out of the gloomy past;But sighing, I turn to the present again, And pray for her pleasures to last.
Sweet Memory comes with tear-stained eye, And parts my hair of brown,Asks me to choose, in a voice so low, Between her and the future's frown.
I reach forth my hand to Memory; Sad though her treasures may be,Yet sweeter by far is her voice so low, Than the voice of the future to me.
Still I sit and dream o'er the sad, sad scene Loved Memory brings to me,With chastened heart and tear-dimmed eye, From her watch-tower over the sea.