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. ’T is a fragrant retrospection—for the loving thoughts that start Into being are like perfume 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 sweetheart 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 cosy 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.
An Old Sweetheart of Mine
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