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AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE
An old sweetheart of mine!--Is this her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of a lover`s memory?
A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer? Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true--
The semblance of the OLD love and the substance of the NEW,--
The THEN of changeless sunny days--the NOW of shower and shine--
But Love forever smiling--as that old sweetheart of mine. This ever-restful sense of HOME, though shouts ring in the
hall.--
The easy chair--the old book-shelves and prints along the wall;
The rare HABANAS in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem
That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them. 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 perfume 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 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. O Childhood-days enchanted! O the magic of the Spring!--
With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to
sing!
When all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee
And changed the children`s song and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy. With eyes half closed in clouds that ooze from lips that taste,
as well,
The peppermint and cinnamon, I hear the old School bell,
And from "Recess" romp in again from "Black-man`s" broken line,
To smile, behind my "lesson," at 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. Again I made her presents, in a really helpless way,--
The big "Rhode Island Greening"--I was hungry, too, that day!--
But I follow her from Spelling, with her hand behind her--so--
And I slip the apple in it--and the Teacher doesn`t know! I give my TREASURES to her--all,--my pencil--blue-and-red;--
And, if little girls played marbles, MINE should all be HERS,
instead!
But SHE gave me her PHOTOGRAPH, and printed "Ever Thine"
Across the back--in blue-and-red--that old sweet-heart 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.
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