Mary Ann Harris Gay (18 Mar 1828 – 06 Nov 1918 | Jones County GA – Decatur GA) poet, author, diarist, memoirist, US Confederate heroine.
Memory’s broken chain – beloved in memory still. Memory, too, was often at work, with
its magic power. When this lorn heart is closed to pain, thou’lt be my sweetest memory.
Never more shall we hear sweet sounds but their memory lives and will vibrate through
these souls forever. And so we might go on to cull from our single memory alone, those
examples upon examples of those who have taken hold with their hands and were living
in royal palaces. There is a little grave to memory dear in a vale embosom’d, a river near,
a cherub mould’ring there. O! may their tomb be thine own heart; may their memory be
cherished as ye take these flowers from me. One of the heart’s dearest treasures is how
memory derives pleasure from communing with images stored away in its garners, or
grasps at sunbeams reflected upon its walls, or while earthly sounds still vibrate souls.