Classic Poem

Ah , tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past;
What is recalled by faded flowers,
Save that they did not last?
Were it not better to forget,
Than but remember and regret?

Look back upon your hours of youth —
What were your early years,
But scenes of childish cares and griefs?
And say not childish tears
Were nothing; at that time they were
More than the young heart well could bear.

Go on to riper years, and look
Upon your sunny spring;
And from the wrecks of former years,
What will your memory bring? —
Affections wasted, pleasures fled,
And hopes now numbered with the dead!