Analysis of Happy Hours

Where are they—those happy hours,
    Link'd with everything I see,
With the colour of the flowers,
    With the shadow of the tree!
Still the golden light is falling.
    As when first I saw the place;
I can hear the sweet birds calling
    To their young and callow race.

Still the graceful trees are bending,
    Heavy with the weight of bloom,
Lilac and laburnum blending
    With the still more golden broom;
Still the rosy May hath bowers
    With her paler sister made;
Where, where are the happy hours
    I have pass'd beneath their shade?

Ah! those hours are turn'd to treasures
    Hidden deep the heart within;
That heart has no dearer pleasures
    Than the thought of what has been.
Every pleasure in remembrance,
    Is like coined gold, whose claim
Rises from the stamp'd resemblance
    Which bestows a worth and name.

Still doth memory inherit
    All that once was sweet and fair.
Like a soft and viewless spirit
    Bearing perfume through the air;
Not a green leaf, doom'd to wither,
    But has link'd some chain of thought —
Not a flower by spring brought hither,
    But has some emotion brought.

Let the lovely ones then perish,
    They have left enough behind,
In the feelings that we cherish,
    Thoughts that link'd them with the mind.
Summer haunts of summer weather,
    Almost is it sweet to part;
For ye leave the friends together,
    To whom first ye link'd my heart.