The Muskingum Valley!—How longin’ the gaze
A feller throws back on its long summer days,
When the smiles of its blossoms and my smiles wuz one-
And-the-same, from the rise to the set o’ the sun:
Wher’ the hills sloped as soft as the dawn down to noon,
And the river run by like an old fiddle-tune,
And the hours glided past as the bubbles ’ud glide,
All so loaferin’-like, ’long the path o’ the tide.
In the Muskingum Valley—it ’peared-like the skies
Looked lovin’ on me as my own mother’s eyes,