A SOUL AT LETHE’S BRINK
ARE ye not overfond—
Ye who would carry memory to the shades,
Those blessed seats in the deep meads and glades ?
For me—I have been bond
To griefs too many and to joys too fierce ;
May neither with remembrance longer pierce !
Lead me, caducean wand,
Where the green turf with silent dew is wet :
There my burnt, throbbing temples will I steep ;
I would forget.
So let me sink in the Great Deep of Sleep !
Why would ye beckon dreams ?
To set the thorn where never grew the thorn !
To make sweet rest a mockery forlorn !
To give the gliding streams
Of that fair twilight country where ye go,
The moaning burden that too well ye know !
To feign the hot noon-beams
Strike the bowed head, where noon came never yet !
Far, far from me, the soothless dream-throng keep !
I would forget.
Oh, let me sink in the Great Deep of Sleep !
Ay, bid adieu to all ;
Nor grieve that something sweetest stays behind.
Be deaf unto his cries, and be ye blind
To looks that would enthral ;
For Love, most far of all the clamant throng
That held the fevered hands of Life so long,
Follows with haunting call.
56 THE SAVOY
Oh, most of all, to him the bound be set ;
Between us thrice the lustral waters creep !
I would forget.
Oh, let me sink in the Great Deep of Sleep.
But ye, why doubt to drink,
Ye spirits that from many a land and zone
Of the wide earth, with me were hither blown ?
Why stand ye at the brink,
A timorous band, who often have besought
That ye might cease from toils, from strife, from thought ;
Why, therefore, do ye shrink ?
Follow—and quaff with closed eye, and let
The sight draw inward, while the shadows creep !
I would forget . . .
And now, I sink in the Great Deep of Sleep !
EDITH M. THOMAS.
MLA citation:
Thomas, Edith M. “A Soul at Lethe’s Brink.” The Savoy vol. 6, October 1896, p. 55. Savoy Digital Edition, edited by Christopher Keep and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2018-2020. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/savoyv6-thomas-lethe/