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ODE TO MEMORY.
Whilome thou earnest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,
When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The black earth with brilliance rare.
iii.
And with the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast.
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind.
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
