I got to thinkin’ of her, as I say,—­and more and more
  I’d think of her dependence, and the burdens ’at she bore,—­
  Her parents both a-bein’ dead, and all her sisters gone
  And married off, and her a-livin’ there alone with John—­
  You might say jes’ a-toilin’ and a-slavin’ out her life
  Far a man ’at hadn’t pride enough to git hisse’f a wife—­
  ’Less some one married Evaline, and packed her off some day!—­
  So I got to thinkin’ of her—­and it happened thataway.

BABYHOOD.

  Heigh-ho!  Babyhood!  Tell me where you linger: 
    Let’s toddle home again, for we have gone astray;
  Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger
    Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.

  Turn back the leaves of life; don’t read the story,—­
    Let’s find the pictures, and fancy all the rest:—­
  We can fill the written pages with a brighter glory
    Than Old Time, the story-teller, at his very best!

  Turn to the brook, where the honeysuckle, tipping
    O’er its vase of perfume spills it on the breeze,
  And the bee and humming-bird in ecstacy are sipping
    From the fairy flagons of the blooming locust trees.

  Turn to the lane, where we used to “teeter-totter,”
    Printing little foot-palms in the mellow mold,
  Laughing at the lazy cattle wading in the water
    Where the ripples dimple round the buttercups of gold: 

  Where the dusky turtle lies basking on the gravel
    Of the sunny sandbar in the middle-tide,
  And the ghostly dragonfly pauses in his travel
    To rest like a blossom where the water-lily died.

  Heigh-ho!  Babyhood!  Tell me where you linger: 
    Let’s toddle home again, for we have gone astray;
  Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger
    Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.

THE DAYS GONE BY.

  O the days gone by!  O the days gone by! 
  The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
  The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail
  As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;
  When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky,
  And my happy heart brimmed over in the days gone by.

  In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped
  By the honey-suckle’s tangles where the water-lilies dipped,
  And the ripples of the river lipped the moss along the brink
  Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came to drink,
  And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant’s wayward cry
  And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days gone by.

  O the days gone by!  O the days gone by! 
  The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye;
  The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin’s magic ring—­
  The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,—­
  When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh,
  In the golden olden glory of the days gone by.