memory

'Twas in the year of 1897, and on the night of Christmas day,
That ten persons' lives were taken sway,
By a destructive fire in London, at No. 9 Dixie Street,
Alas! so great was the fire, the victims couldn't retreat.

In Dixie Street, No. 9, if was occupied by two families,
Who were all quite happy, and sitting at their ease;
One of these was a labourer, David Barber and his wife,
And a dear little child, he loved as his life.

Barber's mother and three sisters were living on the ground floor,

Now at our casement the wind is shrilling,
Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day was golden;
But out on the shore the waves are moaning
With ancient and never fulfilled desire,
And the spirits of all the empty spaces,
Of all the dark and haunted places,

I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.

“There, but for the grace of God, goes…”


There is a question that I ask,
And ask again:
What hunger was half-hidden by the mask
That he wore then?

There was a word for me to say
That I said not;
And in the past there was another day
That I forgot:

A dreary, cold, unwholesome day,
Racked overhead,—
As if the world were turning the wrong way,
And the sun dead:

A day that comes back well enough
Now he is gone.
What then? Has memory no other stuff

I thought to meet no more, so dreary seem'd
Death's interposing veil, and thou so pure,
Thy place in Paradise
Beyond where I could soar;

Friend of this worthless heart! but happier thoughts
Spring like unbidden violets from the sod,
Where patiently thou tak'st
Thy sweet and sure repose.

The shadows fall more soothing: the soft air
Is full of cheering whispers like thine own;
While Memory, by thy grave,
Lives o'er thy funeral day;

The deep knell dying down, the mourners' pause,

MIRROR of the trackless sky,
Priestess of its changing mood,
Ere thy shores were piled on high
Thou didst feel God’s Spirit brood;
Thou didst hear His word alone;—
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.

From thy deeps the creeping things
Spread through cove and brook and fen,
Changing scales for soaring wings
And the mould of mortal men;
From thy womb the world hath grown!
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.

Then among the happier ones

My northern pines are good enough for me,
But there’s a town my memory uprears—
A town that always like a friend appears,
And always in the sunrise by the sea.
And over it, somehow, there seems to be
A downward flash of something new and fierce,
That ever strives to clear, but never clears
The dimness of a charmed antiquity.

List, and in memory bear
These six fond loving pair.
Love, when aroused, kept true
Rustan and Rad!
Strangers approach from far
Joseph and Suleika;
Love, void of hope, is in
Ferhad and Schirin.
Born for each other are
Medschnun and Lily;
Loving, though old and grey,
Dschemil saw Boteinah.
Love's sweet caprice anon,
Brown maid and Solomon!
If thou dost mark them well,
Stronger thy love will swell.

Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge
Of horrible heat- the which are nowhere, nor
Indeed can be: but in this life is fear
Of retributions just and expiations
For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap
From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes,
The executioners, the oaken rack,
The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
And even though these are absent, yet the mind,
With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads
And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile
What terminus of ills, what end of pine

Oh, Bonnie Dundee! I will sing in thy praise
A few but true simple lays,
Regarding some of your beauties of the present day
And virtually speaking, there's none can them gainsay;
There's no other town I know of with you can compare
For spinning mills and lasses fair,
And for stately buildings there's none can excel
The beautiful Albert Institute or the Queen's Hotel,
For it is most handsome to be seen,
Where accommodation can be had for Duke, Lord or Queen,