To Memory

I spent last weekend rummaging through old books and things in my great-great-grandmother's house, and I came across a wonderful collection of poetry. The book didn't even have the author's name written in it! Only a note explaining that "These poems owe much to one whose name I honour too highly to set it here." Amazing. A google search revealed the author to be Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. The poems are exquisite. This is the first:

To Memory

Strange Power, I know not what thou art
Murderer or mistress of my heart.
I know I'd rather meet the blow
Of my most unrelenting foe
Than live - as I now live - to be
Slain twenty times a day by thee.

Yet, when I would command thee hence,
Thou mockest at the vain pretence,
Murmuring in mine ear a song
Once loved, alas! forgotten long;
And on my brow I feel a kiss
That I would rather die than miss.


by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge