Unforgotten

I know a garden where the lilies gleam,
And one who lingers in the sunshine there;
She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,
And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream.

I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,
And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,
Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary⁠—then
He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer.

And ah, it’s strange, for desolate and dim
Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;
Yet he is in the garden by her side,
And she is in the garret there with him.

Where this text comes from

First published in Songs of a Sourdough (1907). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L12.

Cite this poem

Robert W. Service (1874–1958). “Unforgotten.” First published in Songs of a Sourdough (1907). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-w-service/unforgotten/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Robert W. Service