Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PARADOX, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PARADOX, by                    
First Line: Till memory die one spot I shun
Last Line: To ye this heaven I owe!
Subject(s): Love; Memory; Soul; Tears


TILL Memory die one spot I shun;
While Memory lives it is the one
Where brightest hours are passed:
The scene where life's best tale was told
I never would again behold;
Yet there I linger as of old --
Shall haunt it to the last.

You ask me why and how! 'Twas there
I fathomed hope and gauged despair,
Won wealth, knew bitter loss.
There sparkled many a vanished face;
There flourished many a withered grace;
There hovered many a joy whose chase
Beguiled woe, care, and cross.

To see it now were but to vex
Fond eyes with vision of sad wrecks,
Rude changes, vanished blooms:
Who seeks the ruined site where grew
Spring buds of white, and bells of blue?
The ground where summer roses blew
None haunt 'mid wintry glooms.

Yet in whose brain-world lurks there not
The image of that garden plot
With amplest charm bedight?
'Tis such a scene that I frequent;
'Tis there the happy hours are spent;
There live sweet blossom, song and scent,
Fair forms and faces bright.

'Tis always summer, always wealth,
Hope, love and beauty, joy and health,
Flood tide, bright sun, full moon:
No thunder-cloud, no stormy wind
Stain that blue heaven in the mind;
No frown, no word or look unkind
Distract that soul commune.

Ah! strenuous Will, so prompt to bar
The passion that intrudes to mar,
The tears that fain would flow --
Kind Memory too that in soft ways
Smoothes out all roughness from those days,
And wraps them in a tender haze,
To ye this heaven I owe!





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