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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FORGETFULNESS, by JEANNETTE DERBY
First Line: I shut the rooms where we had been together
Last Line: All I held most dear!
Subject(s): Forgetfulness; Memory
First Line: I shut the rooms where we had been together
Last Line: All I held most dear!
Subject(s): Forgetfulness; Memory
I shut the rooms where we had been together;
No place for me to be alone, I knew—
So quiet now, with no exhilaration,
No leaping thoughts tossed to and fro between us,
No little deviltries half smothered, half discovered,
Hiding a tenderness that shyly hung its head ...
No coffee fragrance mingled with odor of tobacco;
Only the candles burning their prayers for the departed,
And the Sheraton sofa stretching its empty length of blue.
I left the rooms where we had been together,
To follow other leadings, find forgetfulness,
And that exuberation, without which my spirit smothers.
I tacked and trimmed with sails of breezy smocks and gew-gaws,
Rattled my coin of bubble-badinage—
Flew madly hither, round and yon,
Nor minded the direction—
Till I was full of the forgetfulness
That comes when one has never time to think.
Suddenly, like one who travels safely in his sleep,
I found again the place where we had been together—
God! how it rushed at me, like a dog, long-leashed,
With glad, glad eyes,
And yelps of mad delight—
Rough paws clawing at my heart!
Then I knew—there in that nest of memories,
There lay my true forgetfulness—
Forgetfulness—remembering
All I held most dear!
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