Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Sentiment: III. Memory“’T is but a little faded flower”
Ellen Clementine Howarth (1827–1899)’T
But oh, how fondly dear!
’T will bring me back one golden hour,
Through many a weary year.
I may not to the world impart
The secret of its power,
But treasured in my inmost heart,
I keep my faded flower.
Within its inmost core,
Some fond remembrance, hidden deep,
Of days that are no more?
Who hath not saved some trifling thing
More prized than jewels rare—
A faded flower, a broken ring,
A tress of golden hair?