I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it,
  And hear her low answerin’ words;
And then the glad chirp of the crickets,
  As clear as the twitter of birds;
And the dust in the road is like velvet,
  And the ragweed and fennel and grass
Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies
  Of Eden of old, as we pass.

“Do They Miss Me at Home?” Sing it lower—­
  And softer—­and sweet as the breeze
That powdered our path with the snowy
  White bloom of the old locus’-trees! 
Let the whipperwills he’p you to sing it,
  And the echoes ’way over the hill,
Tel the moon boolges out, in a chorus
  Of stars, and our voices is still.

[Illustration:  (A’ old played-out song)]

But oh!  “They’s a chord in the music
  That’s missed when her voice is away!”
Though I listen from midnight tel morning,
  And dawn tel the dusk of the day! 
And I grope through the dark, lookin’ up’ards
  And on through the heavenly dome,
With my longin’ soul singin’ and sobbin’
  The words “Do They Miss Me at Home?”

[Illustration:  (A’ old played-out song—­tailpiece)]

[Illustration:  (A very youthful affair)]

A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR

I’m bin a-visitun ’bout a week
To my little Cousin’s at Nameless Creek,
An’ I’m got the hives an’ a new straw hat,
An’ I’m come back home where my beau lives at.

AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO

How tired I am!  I sink down all alone
  Here by the wayside of the Present.  Lo,
Even as a child I hide my face and moan—­
  A little girl that may no farther go;
  The path above me only seems to grow
    More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered
  With keener thorns of pain than these below;
  And O the bleeding feet that falter so
      And are so very tired!

Why, I have journeyed from the far-off Lands
  Of Babyhood—­where baby-lilies blew
Their trumpets in mine ears, and filled my hands
  With treasures of perfume and honey-dew,
  And where the orchard shadows ever drew
    Their cool arms round me when my cheeks were fired
  With too much joy, and lulled mine eyelids to,
  And only let the starshine trickle through
      In sprays, when I was tired!

Yet I remember, when the butterfly
  Went flickering about me like a flame
That quenched itself in roses suddenly,
  How oft I wished that I might blaze the same,
  And in some rose-wreath nestle with my name,
    While all the world looked on it and admired.—­
  Poor moth!—­Along my wavering flight toward fame
  The winds drive backward, and my wings are lame
      And broken, bruised and tired!