Volume Ii Part 92 (1/2)

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton [1808-1877]

”A PLACE IN THY MEMORY”

A place in thy memory, Dearest!

Is all that I claim: To pause and look back when thou hearest The 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 lover Whose hope was crossed, Whose bosom can never recover The light it hath lost!

As the young bride remembers the mother She loves, though she never may see, As a sister remembers a brother, O Dearest, remember me!

Could I be thy true lover, Dearest!

Couldst thou smile on me, I would be the fondest and nearest That ever loved thee: But a cloud on my pathway is glooming That never must burst upon thine; And heaven, that made thee all blooming, Ne'er made thee to wither on mine.

Remember me then! O remember My calm light love!

Though bleak as the blasts of November My life may prove.

That life will, though lonely, be sweet If its brightest enjoyment should be A smile and kind word when we meet, And a place in thy memory.

Gerald Griffin [1803-1840]

INCLUSIONS

Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine?

As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine.

Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine.

Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn closer to thine own?

My cheek is white, my check is worn, by many a tear run down.

Now leave a little s.p.a.ce, Dear, lest it should wet thine own.

Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul?-- Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand; the part is in the whole; Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

MARIANA Mariana in the moated grange.--Measure For Measure

With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall.

The broken sheds looked sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, ”My life is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, ”I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her cas.e.m.e.nt-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats.