Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MEMORY, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MEMORY, by                    
First Line: There are who deem that virtue's prize
Last Line: What can ye do but weep?
Subject(s): Death; Memory; Sea; Time; Dead, The; Ocean


THERE are who deem that Virtue's prize
In some supernal Region lies,
Some fair unshadowed Shore --
That Vice's votaries will fall
From deep to deep in gloomy thrall:
Maybe -- yet each heart holds its all
Of bliss or woe in store.

The bliss -- thy spirit hives for thee,
Who wins it, as a flitting bee
Sips nectar from each flower.
The woe -- Ah! Equity Divine
No strange allotment will assign,
But mete thee what thou madest thine
By deed of every hour.

Stern Memory! that awful wealth,
Impregnable to force or stealth,
Thou guardest to the last --
Thou, of close, trusty warders chief;
The robber Death, and Time the thief,
Show out the truth in strong relief
That makes thy hold so fast.

Sad Sea! where moody waters keep
Inviolate the spoil whose heap
Grows mid life's calm and storms --
Seen now but as a peering eye
Lost wealth thro' limpid deeps may spy,
Or dreamily watch floating by
Wild wreckage and pale forms.

Bleak Garden! where, mid wintry dearth,
Now germinate in fostering earth
A million various germs;
With virtue some, for blossoms bright,
Whereon Heaven's fairest may alight;
Some, charged with poison, doomed to blight,
Or nourish loathsome worms.

True Register! where shrouded rest
The records, secret or confessed,
Of this terrestrial Tale:
The whole, unalterably sealed;
Some, till the mortal hour concealed;
Some, ever and anon revealed
By half uncurtained veil.

These image thee, mysterious Force!
And stamp thee, Retribution's source,
When Death accords thee play:
The Sea shall yield her treasured dead;
The Garden be with blooms o'erspread;
The Register uncloaked be read
As in meridian Day.

What boot transfigured guise and state
If thine equipment ne'er abate
Its torture or delight?
Environment, all fit perchance,
Could sharpen only or enhance;
Tartarean wail, Elysian dance,
Spring from thy Wrong or Right.

Eternal unrelenting Power!
Thy solemn freight, thine awful dower
Rests on the world around:
For is it but a fancy vain
That all Creation bears thy chain?
Such sadness backs the creature strain
And steeps the common sound!

Some dim dark festering sense of loss
Its shadow ever casts across
The glee of all that joys --
Lends pathos to their patient eyes
That minister to man's supplies --
Weighs down the lark from the blue skies --
The throstle's rapture cloys.

Has forfeit of some higher sphere
Begot all mournfulness, each tear,
Each silent yearning look?
I know not if the downcast face
Of meek sad flowers be fraught with grace
To bid man pause ere he retrace
One upward step he took.

Ah me! what dream of bitterer woe
Than bright Above to dark Below
In tantalizing sweep?
Ye who have known a "Might have been,"
Wild eyes back turned upon a scene
Whose glory no illusions screen,
What can ye do but weep?





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