Page:Ethel Churchill Fragments II.pdf/43



Pale Memory sits lone, brooding o'er the past, That makes her misery. She looketh round, And asks the wide world for forgetfulness: She asks in vain; the shadow of past hours Close palpable around her; shapes arise— Shadows, yet seeming real; and sad thoughts, That make a night of darkness and of dreams. Her empire is upon the dead and gone; With that she mocks the present, and shuts out The future, till the grave, which is her throne, Has absolute dominion.