Recollection

HOW can it be that I forget

The way he phrased my doom,

When I recall the arabesques

That carpeted the room?

How can it be that I forget

His look and mein that hour,

When I recall I wore a rose,

And still can smell the flower?

How can it be that I forget

Those words that were his last,

When I recall the tune a man

Was whistling as he passed?

These things are what we keep from life's

Supremest joy or pain;

For memory locks her chaff in bins

And throws away the grain.

Anne Reeve Aldrich

Index to poems in the collection by Anne Reeve Aldrich