An Old Sweetheart Of Mine

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 designI 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

Its fate with my tobacco, and to vanish with the smoke.'Tis a fragrant retrospection, for the loving thoughts that

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 fancies wander 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

When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream.

In fact, to speak in earnest,

I believe it adds a

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

For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow

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

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

With the written declaration that, "as surely as the

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

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;

And 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

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

To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.