REMEMBERING

And ever in the moonlight,

    As the trumpet-blossom swings,

Comes a time of sweet rememb'ring

    Of old, unforgotten things;

Of old, name-carved, spreading beeches.

Of old, moonlit, sandy reaches,

Of half whispered, half thought speeches,

    Like a rustle of white wings.

Comes the moonpath on the water,

    Gilding the sea's dread abyss;

Comes the lapping of the ripples,

    Comes the memory of this;

That, through all the years may measure,

Yet my lips have drained the pleasure

Of life's greatest, grandest treasure,

    Of first love and loves first kiss.

When the moon lights up the prairie

    Come life's memories to me;

When the rolling, the far-reaching

    Stirs and ripples like a sea,

You may think life's cark and fretting,

As life's orb grows near its setting,

Crowds my soul to your forgetting,

    But forgetting may not be.

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