Memory and Hope Poem by Alphonse de Lamartine

I rebehold you, O belovéd Dead
About these doors and windows gatheréd;
With hands held out your own I seem to seize,
As water to the eye shows mirrored faces
That lean to meet our own in fond embraces
Till on love-kindled lips our kisses freeze.

O! Thou who madest memory, must it be
For nought at all?... Nay, we must render Thee,
When life is over in one stream to pour
What hath gone past and what is beyond knowing,
The two halves of our life together flowing,
This saying 'Never,' and that 'For evermore.'

Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew
In our Eternal Life have shape and hue?
For where Time is not shall not all Time be?
In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving
Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving
About the hearth-stone of Eternity?

translated by Wilfrid Thorley