A Wish

When your joys are of the sweetest
    And your heart is light and free; 
When your griefs are skimming fleetest, 
    Love, one moment think of me. 

I’d not ask you to remember 
    Me when life is dull and drear;
When your hopes are but an ember
    From a cold and vanished year; 

Sorrow’s far too bleak a burden
    To retain in mem’ry’s hall. 
Friendship has no greater guerdon
    Than to happiness recall. 

So, when roses scent the twilight
    Air with ling’ring dew damp breath, 
Please remember me as eye-bright
    Faith remembers until death.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 31, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“A Wish” originally appeared in Poems of the Four Seas (The Cornhill Publishing Co., 1921).