Memory sucks: The Pocket University 14 August 2023

Playwright Oliver Goldsmith also wrote poems.

Oliver Goldsmith’s poem deals exclusively with “Long-Term Memory” above. Past nice things, remembered vainly, torment him.

A single poem today, from a man we’ve met time and again around these parts. And mostly because The Pocket University editors have thematically and biographically ordered their readings.¹

Oliver Goldsmith’s “Memory” appears here:

O MEMORY, thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain,
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain:

Thou, like the world, th’ oppress’d oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch’s woe:
And he who wants each other blessing
In thee must ever find a foe.

Well before modern psychologists told us, as we know, that our thoughts turned to the past often bring us bitter regret, Goldsmith spelled it out.