Remembrance

Friend of mine! whose lot was cast     With me in the distant past;     Where, like shadows flitting fast,     Fact and fancy, thought and theme,     Word and work, begin to seem     Like a half-remembered dream!     Touched by change have all things been,     Yet I think of thee as when     We had speech of lip and pen.     For the calm thy kindness lent     To a path of discontent,     Rough with trial and dissent;     Gentle words where such were few,     Softening blame where blame was true,     Praising where small praise was due;     For a waking dream made good,     For an ideal understood,     For thy Christian womanhood;     For thy marvellous gift to cull     From our common life and dull     Whatsoe'er is beautiful;     Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees     Dropping sweetness; true heart's-ease     Of congenial sympathies;     Still for these I own my debt;     Memory, with her eyelids wet,     Fain would thank thee even yet!     And as one who scatters flowers     Where the Queen of May's sweet hours     Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed bowers,     In superfluous zeal bestowing     Gifts where gifts are overflowing,     So I pay the debt I'm owing.     To thy full thoughts, gay or sad,     Sunny-hued or sober clad,     Something of my own I add;     Well assured that thou wilt take     Even the offering which I make     Kindly for the giver's sake