Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Memory of the Heart

By Daniel Webster (1782–1852)

IF stores of dry and learnèd lore we gain

We keep them in the memory of the brain;

Names, things, and facts—whate’er we knowledge call,

There is the common ledger for them all;

And images on this cold surface traced

Make slight impressions, and are soon effaced.

But we’ve a page more glowing and more bright

On which our friendship and our love to write;

That these may never from the soul depart,

We trust them to the memory of the heart.

There is no dimming—no effacement here;

Each new pulsation keeps the record clear;

Warm, golden letters all the tablet fill,

Nor lose their lustre till the heart stands still.

London, 19 Nov., 1839.