Sweet-Knot And Galamus

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,

And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,

So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,

I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,

As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,

And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke

Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start

Into being are like perfumes from the blossom of the heart;

And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -

When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweeheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,

The voices of my children, and the mother as she sings,

I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme

When care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream

In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm

To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm -

For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine

That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.

A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace,

Floats out of my tobacco as the genii from the vase;

And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes

As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.

I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress

She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress

With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine

Grew 'round the stump," she loved me - that old sweetheart of mine.

And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,

As we used to talk together of the future we had planned -

When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do

But write the tender verses that she set the music to:

When we should live together in a cozy little cot

Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,

Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,

And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine:

When I should be her lover forever and a day,

And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;

And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb

They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.