I have invoked thee, but awhile have stood
Silent before thy altar-place, for how
May I the song of gratitude,
Divinest Memory! to thee avow?
Thou life of our departed being!
Our thought and feeling ever fleeing
Into thy shadowy receptacle,
That doth in the bosom dwell
As music in the folded shell.
The past were starless vacancy and void,
All that we felt and suffered and enjoyed,
But that thou sheddest on the stream
Of vanished years thy stationary gleam,
Proving existence not a dream.