Viewing page 259 of 309

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

468     MARY E. LEE

Hast thou forgot me? Unto outward seeming 
My quivering lip with ready smile is mask’d;
And the warm crimson through my cheek is streaming,––
Alas! ’tis from the fever’d heart o’er-task’d; 
But could they read, as in a faultless mirror, 
The truth my woman’s pride would still repress,
Soon would they own themselves to be in error,
And mourn my lot of utter wretchedness. 

Hast thou forgot me? E’en in youth's glad hours 
I trembled ’neath the least glance of thine eye,
And life’s gay pathway was bedeck’d with flowers 
And light and fragrance if thou wast but nigh; 
Each music-note of bliss to thee was given;
Each joy and grief were told thee, e’en in birth; 
Thy presence made my home another heaven,––
When thou wast absent ’t was but common earth. 

Hast thou forgot me? With what fond endeavour
I hurried on in learning’s endless chase;
While wasted health and strength seem’d nought, if ever
1 won the dear approval from thy face;
The midnight toil, the strife, the weary vision,
The pining after knowledge, vain and free,
I struggled against all, one hope elysian
Sustain’d me, ’twas that I might grow worthy thee!

Hast thou forgot me? Like yon flow’ret bending
On fragile stem, beneath the north wind’s wrath,
So to the darksome tomb I am descending,
No more to cast a shadow o'er thy path;
A few more months, and then this care-worn spirit
Shall gently hush its never-ceasing moan,
And find, what long it yearneth to inherit,
The narrow church-yard plot, with weeds o'ergrown.



MARY E. LEE      469

Hast thou forgot me? Ah! I would not waken
One goading thought, beloved friend, in thee;
Nor brook to have thy slightest feeling shaken
With knowledge of the harm thou wrought’st to me:
But oh! forgive, if now, when I am dying,
I breathe this wish, and let it grieve thee not!
That thou wilt seek my grave, and murmur, sighing,
“Though wrong’d neglected, she was not forgot!”


THE RAINY DAY.
I LOVE to look on a day like this,
Of never-tiring rain,
When the blue sky wears its sack-cloth robes,
And the streets are a watery plain;
When the big drops fall on the sounding roofs,
With a cool and a startling splash,
And the flute-like breeze pours its music-notes
’Gainst the close-shut window-sash.

I remember yet, though ’twas long ago,
The beat of my childish heart,
When with half-conn’d lesson I watch’d some morn,
For fear that the clouds might part;
And oh! what bliss when the skies’ wide hall
Seem’d paved as with sheets of lead,
Till the warning rain, at the dark school hour,
Forbade my out-of-door tread.

And in youth’s gay season, when wiser grown,
I own, though I blush to tell,
That each rainy day brought that untask’d time,
Which my spirit loved too well:
When the book of knowledge was thrown aside
For some light and romantic lore,
And of antique ballads and honied rhymes
My memory won full store.
40

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-29 15:21:25