Classic Poem

I WOULD indeed like well to see
What Matilda thinks, or thought of me
In that romantic early year
When her fine name I held so dear,
Or at least made it so appear
In my long-hid first verses book:
I'll try to wile her out to look
At the sundial or the bees,
And underneath the quivering trees
I shall touch on ancient things,
That so long since lost all their wings,
Or rather, to tell truth, I'd say,
Used them long since to fly away.
I did at once, and I must own
A faintly sentimental tone
Stole o'er my reminiscences,
As we passed, repassed the bees:
I said her child recalled her so, —
Revived in me the long ago —
The age was just about the same
When we once played a charming game,
Now quite gone out, upon the grass;
And here again the bees we pass;
Though she forgets to turn her head,
She answers in a cheerful mood,
Her daughter is both fair and good.
The gravel crunched beneath her tread
While she went on, and thus she said:

" Your memory's good for long ago,
I often wish that mine were so,
But when a girl is wed like me,
And carried quite away to town,
The rest soon fades away, you see:
The birds gone, soon the nest blows down:
Your brother James, now gone, and I
Had some flirtations certainly,
He was the red-haired one and tall: —
I can't remember you at all!"

I made reply, some sidelong mutter;
We turned, we joined the rest at tea,
She ate three folds of bread and butter,
She had never thought at all of me!