The Gates of Time and Other Poems

by Frederick George Scott

 

MEMORY

 
O Golden Gates of Memory,
    The sun is burning low,
Unlock thy bars and let me see
    The ghost-forms come and go.

Ye shadowy faces from the past,
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    I once could hear you speak;
My arms around your forms were cast,
    I kissed you on the cheek.

Your laughter rang into my brain,
    I felt your spirit’s fire;
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Ye knew the rack of human pain,
    The rapture of desire.

And somewhere through the realms of space
    Ye wander unconfined,
But now ye take for dwelling-place
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    The chambers of the mind.

Dear faces, once so bright and fair,
    Ye come from buried years—
Old faces, grey with human care,
    Child faces wet with tears.
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I pluck the flowers of early days,
    I smell the breath of spring,
The woods are thrilling with the lays
    Of dead birds carolling.

But now a wind begins to moan,
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    I hear the sob of waves,
And lo, I wander all alone
    Across a land of graves.

O Golden Gates of Memory,
     Be shut! The sun has set,
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And night-clouds roll up from the sea;
    O, let my heart forget.