A Place in Thy Memory

A PLACE in thy memory, Dearest!
Is all that I claim:
To pause and look back when thou hearest
The sound of my name.
Another may woo thee, nearer;
Another may win and wear;
I care not though he be dearer,
If I am remember’d there.

Remember me, not as a lover
Whose hope was cross’d,
Whose bosom can never recover
The light it hath lost!
As the young bride remembers the mother
She loves, though she never may see,
As a sister remembers a brother,
O Dearest, remember me!

Could I be thy true lover, Dearest!
Couldst thou smile on me,
I would be the fondest and dearest
That ever lov’d thee:
But a cloud on my pathway is glooming
That never must burst upon thine;
And heaven, that made thee all blooming,
Ne’er made thee to wither on mine.

Remember me then! O remember
My calm light love,
Though bleak as the blasts of November
My life may prove!
That life will, though lonely, be sweet
If its brightest enjoyment should be
A smile and kind word when we meet
And a place in thy memory.

Gerald Griffin (1803–40)