IN THE COUNTRY...

MNEMOSYNE by Trumbull Stickney ( 1874-1904) He was an American poet and scholar, graduating with honours from Harvard in 1895. Published Dramatic Verses in 1902 and died too young,in 1904.

"Mnemosyne" means "remembrance" and memory ( originally the name of the Greek goddess who was mother of the Muses in mythology. Mnemosyne (memory) was always important in Greek storytelling)

It's autumn in the country I remember

How warm a wind blew here about the ways! And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber

During the long sun-sweetened summer-days

It's cold abroad the country I remember.

The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain at midday with a wing aslant and limber:

And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain...

It's empty down the country I remember

I had a sister lovely in my sight: her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;

We sang together in the woods at night.

It's lonely in the country I remember.

The babble of our children fills my ears, and on our hearth I stare at the perished ember to flames that show all starry thru my tears.

It's dark about the country I remember

There are the mountains where I lived. The path is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber;

The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath.

But that I knew these places are my own, I'd ask how came such wretchedness to cumber the earth, and I to people it alone.

It rains across the country I remember...

Photographs 2026 Mnemosyne is in the public domain. All works published before Jan 1 1931 come under this designation. This poem was written in 1902.