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?"     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,      Pine-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' up'ards      And on through the heavenly dome,     With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin'      The words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"