Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Memories

Oft I remember those whom I have known        &nbsp In other days, to whom my heart was led        &nbsp As by a magnet, and who are not dead,        &nbsp But absent, and their memories overgrown With other thoughts and troubles of my own,        &nbsp As graves with grasses are, and at their head        &nbsp The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,        &nbsp Nothing is legible but the name alone. And is it so with them? After long years,        &nbsp Do they remember me in the same way,        &nbsp And is the memory pleasant as to me? I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?        &nbsp Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,        &nbsp And yet the root perennial may be.