Memory

Brightly the sun of summer shone
Green fields and waving woods upon,
    soft winds wandered by;
Above, a sky of purest blue,
Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue,
   Allured the gazer’s eye.

But what were all these charms to me,
When one sweet breath of memory
   Came gently waiting by?
I closed my eyes against the day,
And called my willing soul away,
   From earth, and air, and asky;

That I might simply fancy there
One little flower-a primrose fair,
   Just opening into sight;
As in the days of infancy,
An opening primrose seemed to me
   A source of strange delight.

Sweet Memory! ever smile on me;
Nature’s chief beauties spring from thee;
   Oh, still thy tribute bring!
Still make the golden crocus shine
Among the flowers the most divine,
   The glory of the spring.

Still in the wallflower’s fragrance dwell;
And hover round the slight bluebell,
   My childhood’s darling flower.
Smile on the little daisy still,
The buttercup’s bright goblet fill
   With all thy former power.

For ever hang they dreamy spell
Round mountain-star and heather-bell,
   And do not pass away
From sparkling frost, or wreathèd snow,
And whisper when the wild winds blow,
   Or rippling waters play.

Is childhood, then, so all divine?
Or, Memory, is the glory thine,
   That haloes thus the past?
Not all divine; its pangs of grief
(Although, perchance, their stay be brief)
   Are bitter while they last.

Nor is the glory all thine own,
For on our earliest joys alone
   That holy light is cast.
With such a ray, no spell of thine
Can make our later pleasures shine,
   Though long ago they passed.