A single moment of youthful rejection now haunts the speaker. Long ago, she turned away from love’s kisses, and now those kisses feel dead, buried beneath the years that have passed. The stark words “spurned” and “dead” make the loss feel final. What surfaces is deep regret. Now that she has wealth—her “gilded treasuries”—she realizes it means little. She would trade all of it just to have the memories of that affection back. There is a quiet ache here, a sense that time has taken something precious and no amount of money can recover it. The poem leaves a wistful, mournful mood, as the speaker sits with the knowledge that what she once pushed away is now the only thing she truly wants.
Retrospect — Summary
Love's kisses spurned so long ago, Dead as the years, that o'er them flow; And now, my gilded treasuries Would I might give — for memories.