Unforgotten

                                                                                                   

                Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Beata Beatrix

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.

                                                 Laurence Hope, India's Love Lyrics, s. 52