"Will not these days be by thy poets sung": Poems of the Anglo-African and National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1863–1864
Edited by Elizabeth Lorang and R. J. Weirpage 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 |
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FOR THE ANGLO-AFRICAN.
Oyster Bay, L. I., Sept., 1863.
FORGOTTEN.
My love has fled, I cease to grieve,
For moments passed with thee;
Another now you may deceive,
And I forgotten be.[2]
My heart's first-love; a woman's pride;
I centred all on thee;
What pain—another at thy side,
And smiles for all but me?
Another one may now receive,
The smiles which once were mine;
Another may thee now believe,
And worship at thy shrine.
My heart a higher love shall seek,
Through faith in Him above:
I hear angelic voices speak,
They whisper "God is Love."
Notes
- Probably Anglo-African editor Robert Hamilton's third daughter. In 1863 twenty year-old Adeline lived with her parents and six siblings in Brooklyn. Like her two elder sisters, Olivia and Hannah, she worked as a seamstress, according to the 1860 census. According to the Anglo-African of January 21, 1865, she served as recording secretary on the committee for the 1865 "National Fair" in aid of the paper.
- The first stanza comprises a bitter, belated dismissal rather than a lament; the speaker grants her former lover permission to turn his attentions to "another" after the fact. The contrast between the declaration in the first stanza and the "pain" in the second and third stanzas qualifies the apparent pastness of her grief. Similarly, the public appearance of "Forgotten" complicates the speaker's gestures of self-effacement ("And I forgotten be"). "Forgotten" may have been a public-personal communication in verse like others in the Anglo-African including Wanderer's "Lines to Miss ——" (November 21, 1863), Cosmopolite's "Lines: To Her Who Will Understand Them" (July 2, 1864), and Randolph's "To E-M-I-A" (October 29, 1864).