Sweet-Knot And Galamus

AN OLD SWEETHEART.      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.             *        *        *        *        *      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.