The blood stained trail of history winds away Through ruined cities and past crumbling walls Half buried, where the tottering columns sway To winds that blunder through the vacant halls. Beyond lie relics of remoter time Dolmens and cromlechs, monoliths of stone Inscriptions weird and uncouth monsters carved On cavern walls, and bits of splintered bone Traced when the hairy mammoth ranged among Wild fens and woodlands when the world was young. For all the runes inscribed on History’s page As Time’s slow finger etched them age by age For our dim eyes to see, Are but the priceless, deathless heritage Of Memory. The traveler venturing into deserts grim That shimmer on the hot horizon’s rim, Does battle with the demons of the heat While sands like burning fingers, claw his feet But other wayfarers have braved the wrath Of scorching wastes - their bones still mark the path! Our counsellor and guide, calm Memory holds The golden balances whose scale unfolds The wisdom of the tried - experience true. The balance trembles, what ought we to do? It dips, it falls, the standard points the way Today’s decisions rest on yesterday. Upon the shores of Time’s vast sea we stand And peer into the gathering mists that rise Dark and portentious before our eyes, While through our fingers slip the grains of sand. We know the waves advancing, will not stay But wash our stumbling footprints all away. Into that sea have sailed the winged hours Like argosies by youthful fancy sent On joyous quest to some far Orient Created in our dreams, pagoda’d towers To bold adventure beckoning gaily on, While tropic skies lent their romantic lure. But those exotic hours, alas, have gone And broken memories alone endure. O time may rob us of our dearest friends. But not our memories! The present blends Into the vanished vistas of the past. Riches have taken wings but at the last A pittance left us. Old, we yet may drink From youth’s eternal fount. A golden link Still binds us with the loved we see no more. The lamp lit circle on our chamber floor Our little kingdom bounds. Within its space Our eyes, through Memory’s magic, see a face That shed, long years ago, a reliance there, A form adorned that graced a vacant chair. How rich and full was life, how barren now! Forsaken in our poverty we bow To Fate’s decree. But in despairing mood Kind Memory, pitying, shares our solitude. Are memories but the vain desire For happier hours that once were mine? The embers of a dying fire. The dwindled lees of life’s rich wine? Or echoes from a seraph’s lyre But lightly touched by hands divine? THE STOKER