Versos English David Gray Sweetly, my mother! Go not yet away

English poem

Sweetly, my mother! Go not yet away

by (1836–1888)

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Sweetly, my mother! Go not yet away— I have not told my story. Oh, not yet, With the fair past before me, can I lay My cheek upon the pillow to forget. O sweet, fair past, my twenty years of youth Thus thrown away, not fashioning a man; But fashioning a memory, forsooth! More feminine than follower of Pan. O God! let me not die for years and more! Fulfil Thyself, and I will live then surely Longer than a mere childhood. Now heart-sore, Weary, with being weary—weary, purely. In dying, mother, I can find no pleasure Except in being near thee without measure.