Memory

My mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour--
'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May--
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich was an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of The Atlantic Monthly. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, much of his writing was inspired by his experiences in the city. He wrote volumes of poetry, novels, and short stories. Aldrich's semi-autobiographical book, "The Story of a Bad Boy," is considered an early example of the "bad boy" genre in American literature.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Like Crusoe, Walking By The Lonely Strand

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

Bagatelle

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

Piscataqua River

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Joys Of Memory

When the spring comes round, and a certain day
Looks out from the brume by the eastern copsetrees
    And says, Remember,
    I begin again, as if it were new,
    A day of like date I once lived through,
    Whiling it hour by hour away;
    So shall I do till my December,
    When spring comes round.

I take my holiday then and my rest
Away from the dun life here about me,
    Old hours re-greeting
    With the quiet sense that bring they must
    Such throbs as at first, till I house with dust,
    And in the numbness my heartsome zest
    For things that were, be past repeating
    When spring comes round.

Thomas Hardy

Memory And I

"O memory, where is now my youth,
Who used to say that life was truth?"

"I saw him in a crumbled cot
Beneath a tottering tree;
That he as phantom lingers there
Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my joy,
Who lived with me in sweet employ?"

"I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,
Where laughter used to be;
That he as phantom wanders there
Is known to none but me."

"O Memory, where is now my hope,
Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?"

"I saw her in a tomb of tomes,
Where dreams are wont to be;
That she as spectre haunteth there
Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my faith,
One time a champion, now a wraith?"

"I saw her in a ravaged aisle,
Bowed down on bended knee;
That h...

Thomas Hardy

Threnody

I

Upon your hearse this flower I lay.
Brief be your sleep!    You shall be known
When lesser men have had their day:
Fame blossoms where true seed is sown,
Or soon or late, let Time wrong what it may.


II

Unvext by any dream of fame,
You smiled, and bade the world pass by:
But I--I turned, and saw a name
Shaping itself against the sky--
White star that rose amid the battle's flame!


III

Brief be your sleep, for I would see
Your laurels--ah, how trivial now
To him must earthly laurel be
Who wears the amaranth on his brow!
How vain the voices of mortality!

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

In May

Grief was my master yesternight;
To-morrow I may grieve again;
But now along the windy plain
The clouds have taken flight.

The sowers in the furrows go;
The lusty river brimmeth on;
The curtains from the hills are gone;
The leaves are out; and lo,

The silvery distance of the day,
The light horizons, and between
The glory of the perfect green,
The tumult of the May.

The bobolinks at noonday sing
More softly than the softest flute,
And lightlier than the lightest lute
Their fairy tambours ring.

The roads far off are towered with dust;
The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;
In yonder swaying elms the wind
Is charging gust on gust.

But here there is no stir at all;
The ministers of sun and shadow
Horde ...

Archibald Lampman

The First of May - A Memory

The waters make a music low:
The river reeds
Are trembling to the tunes of long ago,
Dead days and deeds

Become alive again, as on
I float, and float,
Through shadows of the golden summers gone
And springs remote.

Above my head the trees bloom out
In white and red
Great blossoms, that make glad the air about;
And old suns shed

Their rays athwart them. Ah, the light
Is bright and fair!
No suns that shine upon me now are bright
As those suns were.

And, gazing down into the stream,
I see a face,
As sweet as buds that blossom in a dream,
Ere sorrows chase

Fair dreams from men, and send in lieu
Sad thoughts. A wreath
Of blue-bells binds the head, a bluer blue
The eyes beneath.

This is my li...

Victor James Daley

The River

And I behold once more
My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
The same blue wonder that my infant eye
Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--
Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
And where thereafter in the world he went.
Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
With his redundant waves.
Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
Much triumphing,--and these the fields
Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly
A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--
These are the same, but I am not the same,
But wiser th...

Ralph Waldo Emerson