Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/61

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A MEMORY-PICTURE.
23

It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep;
It hears a voice within it tell,—
Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well
'Tis all, perhaps, which man acquires,
But 'tis not what our youth desires.




A MEMORY-PICTURE.

Laugh, my friends, and without blame
Lightly quit what lightly came;
Rich to-morrow as to-day,
Spend as madly as you may!
I, with little land to stir,
Am the exacter laborer.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!


Once I said, "A face is gone
If too hotly mused upon;
And our best impressions are
Those that do themselves repair."
Many a face I so let flee—
Ah!—is faded utterly.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!


Marguerite says, "As last year went
So the coming year'll be spent;
Some day next year, I shall be,

Entering heedless, kissed by thee."