Quote#Time
Number the riches by thy memory hoarded
Quote byEmma Catherine Embury · 1806–1863
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "Illusions", st. 1, in E. Oakes Smith (ed.) The Mayflower: for MDCCCXLVII (Boston: Saxton & Kelt, 1847) p. 76. Third line altered in The Poet's Offering: for 1850, p. 346: "How many real things are there recorded?" The poem's epigraph is from Burke: "Shadows we are, and shadows we pursue.".
English (original)
Number the riches by thy memory hoarded, Relics of joys thy by-past years have known, — How many real things has life afforded? How much true light was o'er thy pathway thrown?
— Emma Catherine Embury
More from Emma Catherine Embury
Like lamps in Eastern sepulchres, Amid my heart’s deep gloom, Affection sheds its holiest light Upon my husband’s tomb. And, as those lamps, if brought once more To upper air grow dim,
The charm of eloquence, — the skill To wake each secret string, And from the bosom's chords at will Life's mournful music bring, — The o'ermastering strength of mind, which sway The haughty and the free,
The gathered rose, and the stolen heart, Can charm but for a day.
Sorrow treads heavily, and leaves behind A deep impression e’en when she departs; While joy trips by, with steps light as the wind, And scarcely leaves a trace upon our hearts Of the faint footfalls, only this is sure — In this world …
Weep not for those Who sink within the arms of death Ere yet the chilling wintry breath Of sorrow o'er them blows; But weep for them who here remain, The mournful heritors of pain,
Oh never yet did Peace her chaplet twine, To lay upon base Mammon’s sordid shrine, Where Earth’s most precious things are bought and sold; Thrown on that pile, the "pearl of price" would be Despised, because unfit for merchantry.