There Was a Time, I Need Not Name
There Was a Time, I Need Not Name - meaning Summary
Memory of a Lost Love
The poem recounts a past mutual love that has since faded in the beloved but remains vivid in the speaker. The narrator balances grief over present unreciprocated feeling with consolation derived from memory: the beloved once loved and thus still belongs, in recollection, to the speaker. It explores enduring attachment, the bittersweet comfort of remembrance, and the speaker’s resolution to hold that past intimacy as a sustaining truth despite current loss.
Read Complete AnalysesThere was a time, I need not name, Since it will ne’er forgotten be, When all our feelings were the same As still my soul hath been to thee. And from that hour when first thy tongue Confess’d a love which equall’d mine, Though many a grief my heart hath wrung, Unknown, and thus unfelt, by thine, None, none hath sunk so deep as this To think how all that love hath flown; Transient as every faithless kiss, But transient in thy breast alone. And yet my heart some solace knew, When late I heard thy lips declare, In accents once imagined true, Remembrance of the days that were. Yes! my adored, yet most unkind! Though thou wilt never love again, To me ’tis doubly sweet to find Remembrance of that love remain. Yes! ’tis a glorious thought to me, Nor longer shall my soul repine, Whate’er thou art or e’er shalt be, Thou hast been dearly, solely mine.
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