Forgetting (poetry)

Forgetting! Were forgetting

Done easily as said,
I should not be regretting

The days forever dead.

Forgetting! Were it only

Exertion of the will,
I should not be so lonely

And sad so long, and still.

But who, in arms that folded

The star-eyed, radiant Past,---
But who is he so moulded

Can hold the present fast;

And in this rapturous present

Enwound, give never thought
To moments just as pleasant

That were when these were not?

George Frederick Cameron, Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, published 1887