Lola Ridge’s speaker looks back on a warm tropical night shared with someone else—perhaps a lover—by the sea. The memory is intensely physical: palm fronds crackling above white moonlit roofs, surf fumbling on yellow beaches, air as warm and fragrant as a child’s open mouth. Even so, the two sit “a little apart,” and that small distance matters. The night feels close and full of promise, but also unresolved. The sea keeps rolling outward and folding back on itself, much like the speaker’s feelings or the moment itself, which never quite becomes more. The speaker calls the night “inadequate,” as if something important was left unspoken or undone. What remains is a beautiful, haunting image—the memory returning softly, like an ungathered lily, lovely but never fully possessed.
A Memory — Summary
I remember The crackle of the palm trees Over the mooned white roofs of the town... The shining town... And the tender fumbling of the surf On the sulphur-yellow beaches As we sat... a little apart... in the close-pressing night.
The moon hung above us like a golden mango, And the moist air clung to our faces, Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child And we watched the out-flung sea Rolling to the purple edge of the world, Yet ever back upon itself... As we...
Inadequate night... And mooned white memory Of a tropic sea... How softly it comes up Like an ungathered lily.