Classic Poem

I have them still those flowers—ah! those flowers,
They blossom in my heart, not withered yet,
Though more than twelve months 'tis since they were wet
With tender nourishing of Northern showers,
Since they were beautiful in Northern bowers.
Sweet savours even now of soft regret
Hang round them, and a fragrant misty net
Of memory, having most miraculous powers
To wake the past and bring it near again.
Ah! that sweet past of mine—that most sad past—
Most sad, most sweet,—set thick with thorns of pain,
With many a cloudy canopy overcast,
Yet bearing roses one or two to last,
A smile or two predestined to remain.