193. From an old sweetheart of mine.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone.
And muses on the faes of friends he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till, an a shadowy design,
I find that 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 fragrant retrospection,- for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of my heart.
And to dream the ol' dreams over is a luxury of dive-
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 twingeof conscience to deny my any theme
When Care has cast her anchor in the harbour of a dream-

In fact, the speak with earnest, I believe it adds a charm
To spice the good trifle with a little dust of harm,-
for I find an extra flavour in Memory's mellow wine
That makes me drink 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 o 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 I first 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 tat she set the music to...

Then 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 her golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy 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 eagerness and rapture all my vision I resign,-
To greet the living prescence of that old sweetheart of mine.

(: