Edwin Arnold (Эдвин Арнольд)

A Song

Once — and only once — you gave
One rich gift, which Memory
Shuts within itself, to save
Sweet and fresh, while life may be:
Shuts it like a rose-leaf treasured
In the pages of a book,
Which we open, when heart-leisured,
Now and then — softly to look.

If I told you of that gift
How and when, the tend'ring of it,
Would you, out of rose-leaf thrift,
Claim from me the rend'ring of it?
That might make it two for one
('Twas of such unwonted kind!)
Half a mind I have to tell you
Not to tell you half a mind.

Edwin Arnold’s other poems:

  1. The Division of Poland
  2. The Marriage
  3. The Rhine and The Moselle
  4. With a Bracelet in the Form of a Snake
  5. Hagar in the Wilderness

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

  • Mark Akenside (Марк Эйкенсайд) A Song (“The Shape alone let others prize”)
  • William Davenant (Уильям Давенант) A Song (“O thou that sleep’st like pig in straw”)
  • Eleanor Farjeon (Элинор Фарджон) A Song (“It means so little to you”)
  • Robert Binyon (Роберт Биньон) A Song (“For Mercy, Courage, Kindness, Mirth”)
  • Richard Crashaw (Ричард Крэшо) A Song (“Lord, when the sense of thy sweet grace”)
  • Oliver Holmes (Оливер Холмс) A Song (“WHEN the Puritans came over”)

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