mnemosyne: February 2011

mnemosyne

It's autumn in Serampore I remember
How warm a wind blew here about the ways!
And shadows on those plains lay to slumber
During the long-sun-sweetened-summer-days

It's empty down in Serampore I remember
I had a lovely chhass who out of my sight;
Her hair was dark, her eyes will very somber;
The time we sang together in the woods at night.

It's lonely in Serampore I remember
The babble of the streets of my home fill my ears,
Andon our hearth I stare the perished ember
To flames that show all starry thro' my tears.

It's dark about in Serampore I remember
Excogitatingon the mountains where I lived
The path is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber,
The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath.

It's cold winter here in Serampore I remember.
The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain
At midday with a wing aslant and limber;
And yellow cattle browsed upon the plains.

But I knew Serampore is my own
I'd ask how came such wretchedness to cumber
The earth and I to people it alone.