Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, I REMEMBER, by FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

I REMEMBER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Almost I loved you
Last Line: Dancing in the midnight sky.
Subject(s): Memory; Solitude; Loneliness


ALMOST I loved you,
But not quite;
And now I do remember
Through the long, dark night,
Stretching far behind me,
Like the restless sea,
Desolate, lonely, sobbing,
On the dark shores of long ago—
I do remember! I do remember!

Yes, I do remember! It was best!
I did not wholly love you,—
I only thought I might adore you:
Thought! You know the rest:
You too remember
(It was December)
How, when the hills were white,
And Winter day had faded
To a longer Winter night,
We quarrelled.
'T was a blessed quarrel that gave vision
To a blind and wandering heart.

Ah well! Since then the flowers have faded,
And have bloomed again in beauty many times;
Now return the snows of Winter,
After twenty years of Winter in my heart.
I am dreaming, dreaming, dreaming
Of the roses, fragrant, fair;
Once you gayly bound them in your golden hair,
While I shouted, wild with laughter,
"Mea rosa! Mea rosa!"
Oh, so long—so long ago!

Had I loved you?
Had I!—who can tell
What had been my life to me
Had I loved you well?
I did not love you—that was all!
Only still I must remember
The lone desolate December,
And its visions like pale ghost-fires
Dancing in the midnight sky.





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