Historic Poetry: Memory Haunted by Luther G. Riggs

One of my favorite things to do is peruse old newspapers. There’s such a wealth of fascinating tales in them, along with short stories and poetry. Today I stumbled across this hauntingly beautiful poem that I couldn’t help but share.

This one is from The Savannah Tribune, dated August 14^th, 1888.

Memory Haunted
By Luther G. Riggs

I am haunted, daily haunted,
By the memory of a face
Wearing smiles that robbed the sunshine
Of its most bewitching grace—
By a voice that thrills me strangely,
And the glow of sunny skies;
It may be a subtle fancy,
It may be a fitful dream,
Like as flash the running ripples
On some sunlit, shining stream,
Yes, somewhere I sure have seen it,
This mysterious mimic face,
And the image, still I dream it,
Vision of seraphic grace.

I am haunted, nightly haunted,
By a memory so sweet,
Of the touch of hands like lilies,
And the treat of fairy feet.
By those eyes, brown and resplendent,
By that wealth of nut-brown hair,
By that look so pure and saintly,
And that sweet, unconscious air;
It hath stirred me with such pain
That my aching heart hath bled,
And I seem to hear again
Voices of the lover, long dead.
Little hands, your work is over!
Fairy feet, your toil is don!
Sweet, bright life, your mission ends
With its morning just begun.

I am haunted, weirdly haunted,
By the dripping of the rain,
Waking mournful, dirge-like music
And a requiem its refrain.
I am haunted by the rustling
Of the leaves by my door,
And a ceaseless, low-voiced murmur,
“She’s a saint on heaven’s shore!”
Still, her face is ever near me,
Let me wander where I will,
And her brown hair floats around me,
And her brown eyes haunt me still!
Now her form is winging nearer,
And it seems some saintly shrine
Shining brighter, beaming clearer,
With its seraph face divine.