Where is the past, with all its sunny hours

Where is the past, with all its sunny hours,
The spring-tide glory of our friendship's year,
The bloom, the fragrance of hope's earliest flowers
Too freshly gather'd, deem'd perhaps too dear?
Far in bright memory's land!

Where are the summer boughs 'neath which we met,
The soft sweet voices that came round us then,
The songs — whose echoes faintly linger yet —
Speaking of pleasure, whispering of pain?
Far in bright memory's land!

Where do the wither'd flowers of promise breathe
Up from their bed of death a faint perfume,
While melancholy's showers steep the wreath,
And bring back fragrance, tho' they may not bloom?
Far in bright memory's land!

'Tis thus when sorrow shadows o'er the track
That dimly marks the future's unknown clime,
Thus we can tread life's tangled pathway back
To glories rescued from the touch of time, —
Far in bright memory's land!

And almost wish — but for that world above,
Where pain and parting bid a last farewell, —
Bending our all of soul and thought and love
On that one little spot, thro' life to dwell
Far in bright memory's land!