"Remembrance"

Remembrance

The hours of light grow longer,

        Briefer the hours of dusk,

In marshes soon will open

        The green leaves of the musk.

The frog in cool wet hollows

        His notes will murmur long,

The thrush thro’ leafing branches

        Will pour his golden song.

The grass will spring and freshen

        The hillside as of old,

And all the fields will yellow

        With dandelion’s gold.

Yea, all the earth’s rich places

        To sweet new joys will start;

But oh, the bleak and barren

        Waste places of the heart!

"Remembrance" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).

A draft of "Remembrance" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.