UNFORGOTTEN by Lawrence Hope

Do you ever think of me? you who died
Ere our Youth’s first fervour chilled,
With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled
Lying alone, aside,
Do you ever think of me, left in the light,
From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

I am faithful always: I do not say
That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old
To lesser kisses are always cold;
Had you wished for this in its narrow sense
Our love perhaps had been less intense;
But as we held faithfulness, you and I,
I am faithful always, as you who lie,
Asleep for ever, beneath the grass,
While the days and nights and the seasons pass,–
Pass away.

I keep your memory near my heart,
My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star,
Till long live over, I too depart
To the infinite night where perhaps you are.

Oh, are you anywhere? Loved so well!
I would rather know you alive in Hell
Than think your beauty is nothing now,
With its deep dark eyes and tranquil brow
Where the hair fell softly. Can this be true
That nothing, nowhere, exists of you?
Nothing, nowhere, oh, loved so well
I have _never_ forgotten.
Do you still keep
Thoughts of me through your dreamless sleep?

Oh, gone from me! lost in Eternal Night,
Lost Star of light,
Risen splendidly, set so soon,
Through the weariness of life’s afternoon
I dream of your memory yet.
My loved and lost, whom I could not save,
My youth went down with you to the grave,
Though other planets and stars may rise,
I dream of your soft and sorrowful eyes
And I cannot forget.

About the poet : Laurence Hope (1865-1904) was the pen name of Adela Florence Cory Nicolson. Born in 1865, she was educated in England.At age 16 she joined her father in India, where she spent most of her adult life. In 1889 she married Col.Malcolm H. Nicolson, a man twice her age. She committed suicide two months after his death in 1904.