Riley Love-Lyrics | Page 2

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.
[Illustration]
AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE
But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is
softly opened, and--my wife is standing there; Yet with eagerness and
rapture all my visions I resign
To greet the living presence of that old
sweetheart of mine.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG
It's the curiousest thing in creation,
Whenever I hear that old song

"Do They Miss Me at Home," I'm so bothered,
My life seems as short
as it's long!--
Fer ev'rything 'pears like adzackly
It 'peared in the
years past and gone,--
When I started out sparkin', at twenty,
And
had my first neckercher on!
Though I'm wrinkelder, older and grayer
Right now than my parents
was then,
You strike up that song "Do They Miss Me,"
And I'm jest
a youngster again!--
I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries

A-wishin' fer evening to come,
And a-whisperin' over and over

Them words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
[Illustration]

You see, _Marthy Ellen she_ sung it
The first time I heerd it; and so,

As she was my very first sweetheart,
It reminds me of her, don't
you know;--
How her face used to look, in the twilight,
As I tuck
her to Spellin'; and she
Kep' a-hummin' that song tel I ast her,

Pint-blank, ef she ever missed _me!_
I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it,
And hear her low answerin'
words;
And then the glad chirp of the crickets,
As clear as the
twitter of birds;
And the dust in the road is like velvet,
And the
ragweed and fennel and grass
Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies

Of Eden of old, as we pass.
"_Do They Miss Me at Home_?" Sing it lower--
And softer--and
sweet as the breeze
That powdered our path with the snowy
White
bloom of the old locus'-trees!
Let the whipperwills he'p you to sing it,

And the echoes 'way over the hill,
Tel the moon boolges out, in a
chorus
Of stars, and our voices is still.
But oh! "They's a chord in the music
That's missed when _her_ voice
is away!"
Though I listen from midnight tel morning,
And dawn tel
the dusk of the day!
And I grope through the dark, lookin' upwards

And on through the heavenly dome,
With my longin' soul singin' and
sobbin'
The words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
[Illustration]
A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR
I'm bin a-visitun 'bout a week
To my little Cousin's at Nameless
Creek,
An' I'm got the hives an' a new straw hat,
An' I'm come back
home where my beau lives at.
[Illustration]
AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO

How tired I am! I sink down all alone
Here by the wayside of the
Present. Lo,
Even as a child I hide my face and moan--
A little girl
that may no farther go;
The path above me only seems to grow

More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered
With keener thorns of
pain than these below;
And O the bleeding feet that falter so
And
are so very tired!
Why, I have journeyed from the far-off Lands
Of Babyhood--where
baby-lilies blew
Their trumpets in mine ears, and filled my hands

With treasures of perfume and honey-dew,
And where the orchard
shadows ever drew
Their cool arms round me when my cheeks were
fired
With too much joy, and lulled mine eyelids to,
And only let
the starshine trickle through
In sprays, when I was tired!
Yet I remember, when the butterfly
Went flickering about me like a
flame
That quenched itself in roses suddenly,
How oft I wished that
_I_ might blaze the same,
And in some rose-wreath nestle with my
name,
While all the world looked on it and admired.--
Poor