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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Memory

William Browne

So shuts the marigold her leaves
  At the departure of the sun;
So from the honeysuckle sheaves
  The bee goes when the day is done;
So sits the turtle when she is but one,
And so all woe, as I since she is gone.

To some few birds kind Nature hath
  Made all the summer as one day:
Which once enjoy’d, cold winter’s wrath
  As night they sleeping pass away.
Those happy creatures are, that know not yet
The pain to be deprived or to forget.

I oft have heard men say there be
  Some that with confidence profess
The helpful Art of Memory:
  But could they teach Forgetfulness,
I’d learn; and try what further art could do
To make me love her and forget her too.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900 | Clarendon, 1919
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