Page:Poems Blake.djvu/171

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"LORD, KEEP OUR MEMORY GREEN!"
When, in the first wild throes of grief,
The sick heart turns from all relief,
And backward counting, sad and slow,
An hour, a week, a month ago
To days ere yet the light had flown
From those dear eyes we called our own,—
We ask of God the seal to set:
"How long, O Lord, ere we forget?"

For still to live through unknown years,
Lost voices ringing in our ears,—
Lost faces held in memory's grasp,—
Lost hands that never more we clasp,—
And feet whose steps have died away
Walking beside us day by day,—
Seems all too hard for love's regret,
And so we pray, "Let us forget!"

But when above life's troubled springs
We feel the stir of angels' wings,