HOW few through Memory’s dreamy scope, <br />However resolute of hope, <br />Can view the backward scene where first <br />Their youth rejoiced—for ever crost— <br />And not bewail as Adam erst <br />The Eden they have lost! <br />Nor feel, alas! with it compared, <br />The Present but a lengthening wild <br />Whereon young Passion never fared, <br />Young Beauty never smiled! <br />Yet ’tis a melancholy pleasure <br />To sit by moon-struck Memory’s side, <br />And hear her wild lyre oft remeasure <br />The story of our youthful pride! <br />Hours recalling, ah! how rife <br />With emotions lavished wide <br />Through the Garden of our Life <br />Ere all its spring-time roses died, <br />And (like day’s splendours when the sun <br />Remits in his decline from weaving <br />A robe of beauty for the Ev’ning) <br />Fancy’s Elysiums, one by one, <br />Had paled away as the long night came on! <br /> <br />Yes! ’tis a melancholy sweet, <br />And thus let Memory oft repeat <br />Life’s first tale, that to the core <br />Retempered by such generous lore, <br />Our hard’ning spirits, as ’tis meet, <br />May pity the cold world—the world we trust no more!<br /><br />Charles Harpur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/memory-s-genesis/
