MEMORY

by: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)

NE wild and simple bugle sound,

Breathed o'er Killarney's magic shore,

Awakes sweet floating echoes round

When that which made them is no more.

 

So slumber in the human breast

Wild echoes that will sweetly thrill

Through memory's vistas when the voice

That waked them first for aye is still.

 

Oh! memory, though thy records tell

Full many a tale of grief and folly,

Of mad excess, of hope decayed,

Of dark and cheerless melancholy.

 

Yet, memory, to me thou art

The dearest of the gifts of mind,

For all the joys that touch my heart

Are joys that I have left behind.

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