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O memory, hope, love of finished years,
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream,
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
   
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath,
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

She floated,
like a butterfly,
a flit on a bloom.
I let out a sigh,

why do memories
fade and go away,
without nature,
gone! What do I say?

Remember me when I am gone away,
 Gone far away into the silent land;
 When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
     You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
         Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
         For if the darkness and corruption leave
         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
         Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti II and features in several of his paintings.

Rosetti wrote "Remember" when she was 19 in 1849. It was first published in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems. This poem is in the public domain.

I just want to be useful, again.
No need for romance,
or a Spring dance.
I just want to be useful, again.

My mind is overcome with sadness. I am reposting
to see if I can jump start this old brain.

Once more, from the past

This was written on January 2, 2018.
It was about my wife, who passed
away on December 24, 2023.

Sometimes, reposting helps me with
this process of living. This is from December 23, 2017

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints—rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching—watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,
       The eyes of my Regret.

This poem was published in 1927, is in the public domain.

Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958) was an American journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet. "Race" was a major issue in her life; she was the daughter of a white mother and a half-white father. She attended the best preparatory schools in Massachusetts. She was one of the first American women of color to have a play publicly performed.

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her works include Poems of Passion and Solitude, which contains the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone." Her autobiography, "The Worlds and I", was published in 1918, a year before her death. Read more

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
...“And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet and educator . His works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was was one of the Fireside Poets from New England and the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Wikipedia

A fantasy tale within a dream.