Forget Me Not

FORGET me not, Beloved! when, far and far away,
I float, a leaf, along the world's wide sea:
"When flowers bestrew thy path and zephyrs round thee play
Let that fond heart of thine remember me.
The roses nigh thy window-cells will blow;
The morning sun will shine, the evening stars will glow;
The moon's blue beams will tremble on the grot,
And I afar. Forget me not!

Forget me not when in the gorgeous hall
Thy light steps move where Youth and Beauty bloom;
Forget me never when the curtain-pall
Of Eve shall robe thy lonesome bower in gloom.
When, Heaven's dim veil uprolled, the starry kingdom gleams,
And when thy spirit soars and mingles with its beams,
I too shall glance above, and this shall be my thought —
Loved Marianne, Forget me not!

Forget me not when Spring is newly flowering,
When Nature, garland-crowned, speaks with divinest voice,
And strikes thine eye with loveliness overpowering,
And bids thy gentle spirit in its depths rejoice.
Forget me not when Summer-days draw nigh,
When, like so many fragments of the mild blue sky,
Young violets shall whisper from each bowery spot,
"Forget me not! Forget me not!"

Forget me not when Memory sweetly lingers
On that loved haunt, by both remembered well,
The spot where first I touched thy fairy fingers —
Eemember, Marianne, the darkling pine-tree dell!
What happiness was mine when first I pressed
Thy hand, and dared to raise it to a breast
Wherein that warm pulse beats which now dictates this thought —
"Oh, Marianne, Forget me not!"

Forget me not when sauntering by that lone
Gate which the tall wild weeds encircle wreathingly,
Where oft I hung upon thine every tone
As on the chaliced flowrets hangs the amorous bee:
The echo of thy words then died away in distance,
Not so the soul they breathed — that lives in green existence
Deep in a heart with thy dear image fraught —
Then, Marianne, Forget me not!

Where droops the cypress, there ray spirit hovers,
Beside that grave which once we loitered nigh.
The pale day sank, too drearily for lovers,
But Holiness and Peace were in thy soul and eye.
The spirit of thy mother blessed thee then, oh, maiden!
Thy heart felt tranquillized, while mine, alas! was laden
With many a dark foreshadowing of my future lot —
Yet, Marianne, Forget me not!

VT CVO
Rememberest thou the evening? Thoughts that speech expresses
So vaguely and so ill were swelling in thy bosom;
The stirless Autumn airs forebore to woo thy tresses;
There was no moaning voice that night on flower or blossom.

The holy cypresses with tear-like dews were wet:
Canst thou, my Marianne, that thrilling hour forget?
Ah! then these burning words, too, from thy memory blot—
"My Marianne, Forget me not!"

What there absorbed my mind and all my mind-born powers
Shews clear and pure and placid as the enamelled
Night,
Which then shone down upon those consecrated hours,
Hours garnered in my memory as her best delight,
That strong and calm devotion which ennobled Love,
And saved from wronging stain the sacred garland of
Homage I proffered then to Virtue, Truth, and thee—
Then, Marianne, Remember me!

That strong and calm devotion sanctifies me now:
Oh! ne'er in saintly bosom burned a holier glow
Than mine, when, whitely veiling thy too radiant brow,
Thou earnest, as from Heaven, to illume dark Earth below.

Thus hover o'er me still through my long night of years,
And, like a dazzling vision born of loftier spheres,
Hallow the hour in which my last, last sigh shall be,
"O, Marianne, Remember me!"

Not in the smile — not in the favouring glance —
Not in the enthralling magic of thy greeting —
Not in that queenly form transcending all romance,
Which rose where slim young boughs and blossom gauze were meeting —
Not in the fascinating graces of thy mien
The enchantment lay; — the Mind, that melodist unseen,
First woke the chord of Love which now breathes whisperingly —
"My Marianne, Remember me."

This high existence — this ethereal essence —
This wonder-sphere of harmonies Elysian,
"Whose rays encircle thee with fadeless presence,
This, only this shall live unwaning in my vision.
There blow those airs of peace whose breath is Paradise,
There virtues, flower-like, breathe rich incense to the skies,
Those skies from whence a voice shall shortly sigh to thee —
"Ah, Marianne, Remember me!"

Peace round thee be! But tenfold woe to those
Who waken anguish in a heart like thine,
A heart like thine, whose every feeling glows
With goodness and benevolence divine:
"Who shall debar me from the throne I claim
In that exalted Heaven? Ah! might my noteless name
Be with this lay of love before thy memory brought!
My Marianne, Forget me not!

Here, underneath the greenery of the vine,
My hand and heart have reared a monument to thee!
Here oft I sweetly dream, oft sadly pine,
But all my thoughts are born for Immortality,
For they are all of thee; and Lethe shall not sweep
Such treasure to her caves, and least of all that deep
And everburning wish wherewith my soul is fraught —
Oh, Marianne, Forget me not!

Still fair, still fragrant live the white flowers wreathed
Around my temples by thy whiter hand,
What time thou sawest from this fond bosom breathed
The emotion I no longer could command,
And sawest it in the cheek that redly glowed,
And sawest it in the tears that hotly flowed,
Blest tears! which more than Speech and more than lyre have taught;
Then, Marianne, Forget me not!

By all those things, the dell, the glorious hill,
The brilliant flowers we gathered on its peak,
The winds that played among thy locks at will,
And wantoned with the roses on thy cheek,
By the decaying sunset's latest look of love,
Which lifted thy pure heart in voiceless prayer above,
And by my last Farewell, if in its tones lay aught,
I call on thee — Forget me not!

By the faint echoes borne from that sweet time
When every glowing day slept in a lair of flowers,
By all those reminiscences sublime
That float like bright-haired shadows from Elysian bowers,
By all thou art and wert, by all thy faith and feeling,
By that deep humbleness which, studiously concealing
Its own imperial worth, twines wreaths for others ever,
I call on thee — Forget me never!

And when, at eve, thou wanderest down the glen,
What time the boding night-bird chants his lay of death,
Ah! then, perchance, and for the last time then,
These lips shall bless thy name with faltering breath;
Then, when the winds shall waft the tidings on their wings,
And the dark pine-trees round thee groan, like living things,
Then wilt thou feel my heart hath broken with this thought —
"Loved Marianne, Forget me not!"