Faded Flowers (Sarah Helen Whitman)

Faded Flowers (1841)
by Sarah Helen Whitman
193674Faded Flowers1841Sarah Helen Whitman

Remembrancers of happiness! to me
   Ye bring sweet thoughts of the year's purple prime,
Wild, mingling melodies of bird and bee
   That pour on summer winds their silvery chime;
And of rich incense, burdening all the air,
   From flowers that by the sunny garden wall
Bloomed at your side,--nursed into beauty there
   By dews and silent showers; but these to all
Ye bring. Oh! sweeter far than these the spell
   Shrined in those fairy urns for me alone,
For me a charm sleeps in each honied cell
   Whose power can call back hours of rapture flown,
To the sad heart sweet memories restore,
Tones, looks and words of love that may return no more.