I cannot sing the old songs,
Though well I know the tune,
Familiar as a cradle-song
With sleep-compelling croon;
Yet though I'm filled with music
As choirs of summer birds
"I cannot sing the old songs"—
I do not know the words.
I start on "Hail Columbia,"
And get to "heav'n-born band,"
And there I strike an up-grade
With neither steam nor sand;
"Star Spangled Banner" downs me
Right in my wildest screaming,
I start all right, but dumbly come
To voiceless wreck at "streaming."
So, when I sing the old songs,
Don't murmur or complain
If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum,"
Should fill the sweetest strain.
I love "Tolly um dum di do,"
And the "trilla-la yeep da" birds,
But "I cannot sing the old songs"—
I do not know the words.
Robert J. Burdette.
|