Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete

REMEMBRANCE

WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS.

     Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
     With me in the distant past;
     Where, like shadows flitting fast,

     Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
     Word and work, begin to seem
     Like a half-remembered dream!

     Touched by change have all things been,
     Yet I think of thee as when
     We had speech of lip and pen.

     For the calm thy kindness lent
     To a path of discontent,
     Rough with trial and dissent;

     Gentle words where such were few,
     Softening blame where blame was true,
     Praising where small praise was due;

     For a waking dream made good,
     For an ideal understood,
     For thy Christian womanhood;

     For thy marvellous gift to cull
     From our common life and dull
     Whatsoe'er is beautiful;

     Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
     Dropping sweetness; true heart's-ease
     Of congenial sympathies;—

     Still for these I own my debt;
     Memory, with her eyelids wet,
     Fain would thank thee even yet!

     And as one who scatters flowers
     Where the Queen of May's sweet hours
     Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers,

     In superfluous zeal bestowing
     Gifts where gifts are overflowing,
     So I pay the debt I'm owing.

     To thy full thoughts, gay or sad,
     Sunny-hued or sober clad,
     Something of my own I add;

     Well assured that thou wilt take
     Even the offering which I make
     Kindly for the giver's sake.

     1851.