"And is there nothing yet unsaid,
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years."
"Why, yes;" for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;
"I could not bear to leave them all
I'll take—my—girl—and—boys."
The smiling angel dropped his pen,—
"Why, this will never do;
The man would be a boy again,
And be a father too!"
And so I laughed,—my laughter woke
The household with its noise,—
And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
To please the gray-haired boys.
REMEMBER—FORGET
1855
AND what shall be the song to-night,
If song there needs must be?
If every year that brings us here
Must steal an hour from me?
Say, shall it ring a merry peal,
Or heave a mourning sigh
O'er shadows cast, by years long past,
On moments flitting by?
Nay, take the first unbidden line
The idle hour may send,
No studied grace can mend the face
That smiles as friend on friend;
The balsam oozes from the pine,
The sweetness from the rose,
And so, unsought, a kindly thought
Finds language as it flows.
The years rush by in sounding flight,
I hear their ceaseless wings;
Their songs I hear, some far, some near,
And thus the burden rings
"The morn has fled, the noon has past,
The sun will soon be set,
The twilight fade to midnight shade;
Remember-and Forget!"
Remember all that time has brought—
The starry hope on high,
The strength attained, the courage gained,
The love that cannot die.
Forget the bitter, brooding thought,—
The word too harshly said,
The living blame love hates to name,
The frailties of the dead!