Can you annotate the poem: "No Time Like the Old Time" by Oliver Wendell Holmes?There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young, When...

To annotate a text is the
same thing as glossing a text. To
gloss (annotate) a text means to write a detailed
commentary of a text. A commentary of this sort will be somewhat different from a
critical analysis although some of the same topics may be
covered.

Holmes opens his cheerful and light-hearted poem
by modifying the expression "old times," meaning times of life gone by, to match and
parallel another expression, "the old friend," which appears later on in the poem. So
the focus of the poem is on the parallel ideas of "the old time" and "the old
friend."

Holmes then employs a poetic convention by
speaking of "the buds of April" blossoming, which symbolizes the spring time of life, or
youth, while literally representing "the old time" that Holmes is focusing on. A second
poetic convention of "birds of spring-time" singing symbolizes the happiness of youth
and  also represents "the old time." It is probable that "gardens brightest glories / by
summer suns" nursed is another convention that symbolizes growing to maturity in a
garden of life and friendship while also again representing "the old time" in the
literal garden from his recollection.

Holmes now leaves the
garden and switches to the other half of the parallel focus, "the old friend." The
phrase "morning days" operates the same as the phrases above: it symbolizes days of
youth while representing literal mornings, probably spent in the garden of the first
part of the poem. Holmes again switches and begins a long metaphor comparing friendship
to fame. He says a friend's "welcome" and "homage" have no
equal.

A colon follows "like his praise." The colon
indicates that what comes after explains or expands upon what comes before the colon. In
other words, because of the colon, we know that the last lines are the continuation of
Holmes' thoughts about friends and not a new topic
altogether.

The last five lines might be paraphrased like
this: There is no homage (honor) like a friend's praise: This is because fame is like a
scentless sunflower with no real sweet charm of its own and only the appearance of gold
in its circlet of petals; but friendship is the real flower in the metaphoric garden of
life--it is the sweet-scented rose that has fragrance in every petal. Holmes uses
similes to compare fame to "the scentless sunflower" and friendship to "the breathing
rose," while "breathing" also implies life-force and represents a personification of the
rose.