Poetry Revisited: Thoughts by Marion Bernstein

Thoughts

(from David Hershell Edwards (ed):
One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets: 1880)

Day by day Life's scroll unfoldeth
Slowly is our fate revealed;
Every eye the Past beholdeth,
But the future is concealed.

Moments mournful, moments pleasant,
Come and go, and none can last,
What was Future now is Present,
What was present now is Past.

It, perhaps, may soothe our sorrow
Thus to think ‘twill pass away:
Life must change. Perhaps to-morrow
May be brighter than to-day.

And sweet scenes of bygone gladness
Are not altogether fled;
Mem‘ry, lighting up our sadness,
Half restores the lost and dead.

When Life's joys seem lost for ever,
We can dream them o‘er again;
All Time's changes cannot sever
One bright link in Mem’ry‘s chain.

And the Future none can know it
Until Time the truth reveal.
Fancy may pretend to show it;
Time still proves her scenes unreal.

Radiant Hope, for ever smiling,
Speaks of happier days in store,
Many simple hearts beguiling,
Though they‘ve found her false before.

Hope and Fancy oft deceive us,
But they make our days more bright:
May they never, never leave us,
Or withdraw their cheering light.

Marion Bernstein (1846-1906)
Scottish feminist poet