Half-Remembered Poem by David Lewis Paget

We touch things we see not
And know things we know not
And dream of sweet things that
We’ve not set in store,
We say things we think not
And do things we do not
And wonder at wonders
We’ve wondered before.

I see you in shades of
Another life’s colours
Where sweetness and pleasance
And love was the play,
Where green was the colour
You wore to the wedding
That bound me to see where
Your loveliness lay.

And wild was the country
We took for our mansion,
And green was the valley
And green were your eyes,
And seen were you riding
So high in the saddle
Of Pacer and Gracer
By Barking Wood rise.

I vaguely see visions
Of cottagers doorsteps
In winter-white mantles
Of featherdown snow,
And you looking on me
While glowing with love-light
As I took you on to
The valley below.

And sometimes I see when
I laid you in velvet
And stole a last kiss from
The lips we had shared,
And went on to mourn ‘til
The tides took my eyesight,
And left me to wonder how
Much you had cared.

Now when I awake with
These visions so fleeting
That fade and recede in
The glow of the dawn,
I look at you lying so
Peaceful beside me
And smile at the love shared
Before we were born.

We touch things we see not
And know things we know not
And dream of sweet things that
We’ve not set in store,
We say things we think not
And do things we do not
And wonder at wonders
We’ve wondered before…

21 August 1973