Forget- me- not

If I forget,

The salt creek may forget the ocean;

If I forget,

The heart whence flowed my hearts' bright motion,

May I sink meanlier than the worst,

Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst -

If I forget.

Though you forget,

No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;

Though you forget, -

You filled my barren life with treasure;

You may withdraw the gift you gave,

You still are queen, I still am slave,

Though you forget.'

Extract from Thomas Hardy's novel 'The Woodlanders' taken from the poem by Edmund Gosse called 'Two points of view'.