 | Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge |  |
25
[XXI
O Memory, Mistress of the heart's despair]
O Memory, Mistress of the heart's despair,Spirit of solitude and silent tears,
Pilgrim thro' twilights of departed years
Peopled with ghosts of all that once we were—
Pale vampire of the graves of Time, forbear!
Suffer the dead to rest! each ghost appears
Desolate in thy darkened atmospheres,
And joy is bitter and pain is perfect there.
Thine are the days gone irretrievably:—
Forbear, O Memory, for the heart will break!
Unless the Soul shall, peradventure, wake
Wonderfully, and, elate with mystic powers,
Rend as with lightnings of eternity
The graves of the interminable hours!
| Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge | |