Let it Be Forgotten

Edward le Bas, "The Tea Table"

Let it Be Forgotten

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, 

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, 

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever, 

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old. 

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten 

Long and long ago, 

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall 

In a long forgotten snow.

Sara Teasdale


I was going over this poetry collection the other day and noticed the poems "Let Love Go On" by Carl Sandburg, and "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon, and was thinking to myself what a strange word "let" is - at least in those poems. Partly acceptance, and partly an imperative. I thought I'd hunt down some more poems and see how "let" is used in them. This one again has that strange paradoxical sense of doing something purposefully and allowing it to happen. How do you deliberately forget something? Trying to forget usually imprints the memory even more firmly in our heads. And what is the poet trying to forget? She wouldn't want to forget something pleasant, and yet she akins the memory she wants to forget with beautiful things that easily slip from our minds. A strange poem in so many ways.