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'.
