I am sitting here and dreaming with the mellow lamplight streaming
Through the vine-embowered window in a yellow filigree;
On the fragrant air come winging vagrant notes of woman’s singing,
’Tis the slumber song of childhood that is murmuring to me;
And some subtle fancy creeping lulls my senses half to sleeping
As the misty shapes of bugaboos go dreamily along,
All my sorrows disappearing, as a tired lad I’m hearing
Once again my mother’s
Sleepy little,
Creepy little,
Song.
LOVERS’ LANE
HOW good to remember Life’s June from September,
The days that were fairer than ever again;
When hearts held no sorrow to last o’er the morrow
And heads were brimful of the wisdom of ten;
No skies were e’er bluer, no heart was e’er truer
Than mine when I waited in sunshine or rain
With joy that enriched me for one who bewitched me
And bade me to wait till she came down the lane.
Our trysting-place gaining, my eyes they were straining
Afar down the road, and my lips hummed a tune
That held all the sweetness of first love’s completeness
The whiles that I waited at morning and noon;
For last when we parted, beloved, fond hearted,
She pledged me to wait for her, sunshine or rain,
And so I kept humming, I knew she was coming,
A girl queen in gingham, somewhere down the lane.
And there with a vision of futures Elysian
I traced both our names with my toe in the dust,
And not a temptation could alter my station
As knight of the faithful heart, true to its trust.
LOVER’S LANE
WITH ecstasy thrilling, I heard a far trilling
So sweeter than bird song, and heard it again,
The heart of the maiden, care-free and joy-laden,
Was borne on the music I heard down the lane.