John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Poems Subjective and ReminiscentRemembrance
F
With me in the distant past;
Where, like shadows flitting fast,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!
Yet I think of thee as when
We had speech of lip and pen.
To a path of discontent,
Rough with trial and dissent;
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due;
For an ideal understood,
For thy Christian womanhood;
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe’er is beautiful;
Dropping sweetness; true heart’s-ease
Of congenial sympathies;—
Memory, with her eyelids wet,
Fain would thank thee even yet!
Where the Queen of May’s sweet hours
Sits, o’ertwined with blossomed bowers,
Gifts where gifts are overflowing,
So I pay the debt I ’m owing.
Sunny-hued or sober clad,
Something of my own I add;
Even the offering which I make
Kindly for the giver’s sake.