“Forget thee?”

John Moultrie (1799–1874)

“FORGET thee?”—If to dream by night, and muse on thee by day,

If all the worship, deep and wild, a poet’s heart can pay,

If prayers in absence breathed for thee to Heaven’s protecting power,

If wingèd thoughts that flit to thee—a thousand in an hour,

If busy Fancy blending thee with all my future lot—

If this thou call’st “forgetting,” thou indeed shalt be forgot!

“Forget thee?”—Bid the forest-birds forget their sweetest tune;

“Forget thee?”—Bid the sea forget to swell beneath the moon;

Bid the thirsty flowers forget to drink the eve’s refreshing dew;

Thyself forget thine “own dear land,” and its “mountains wild and blue;”

Forget each old familiar face, each long-remembered spot;—

When these things are forgot by thee, then thou shalt be forgot!

Keep, if thou wilt, thy maiden peace, still calm and fancy-free,

For God forbid thy gladsome heart should grow less glad for me;

Yet, while that heart is still unwon, O, bid not mine to rove,

But let it nurse its humble faith and uncomplaining love;

If these, preserved for patient years, at last avail me not,

Forget me then;—but ne’er believe that thou canst be forgot!