Remembrance

I do remind me how, when, by a bier,
I looked my last on an unanswering face
Serenely waiting for the grave’s embrace,
One who would fain have comforted said: “Dear,
This is the worst. Life’s bitterest drop is here.
Impartial fate has done you this one grace,
That till you go to your appointed place,
Or soon or late, there is no more to fear.”
It was not true, my soul! it was not true!
“Thou art not lost while I remember thee,
Lover and friend!” I cry, with bated breath.
What if the years, slow-creeping like the blue,
Resistless tide, should blot that face from me?
Not to remember would be worse than death!