The river is running just as still—the willows on its side
Are larger than they were, dear Tom, the stream appears less wide;
The grape-vine swing is ruin’d now, where once we play’d the beau,
And swung our sweethearts, pretty girls, just Twenty Years Ago.
The spring that bubbled ’neath the hill, close by the spreading beach,
Is very high--’twas once so low that we could almost reach,
But in kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so,
To see how sadly I am changed since Twenty Years Ago.
Down by the spring upon an elm you know I cut your name—
Your sweetheart is just beneath it Tom—and you did mine the same,
Some heartless wretch has peel’d the bark--’twas dying sure but slow,
Just as the one whose name you cut did Twenty Years Ago.
My lids have long been dry, dear Tom, but tears come in my eyes,
I thought of her I loved so well—those early broken ties;
I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew
Upon the graves of those we loved some Twenty Years Ago.
Some are in the churchyard laid, some sleep beneath the sea,
But few are left of our old class, excepting you and me:
But when our time shall come, dear Tom, and we are call’d to go,
I hope they’ll lay us were we play’d just Twenty Years Ago.
Star Spangled Banner.
Oh! say, can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
Oh! say, does the star-spangled banner still wave,
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mist of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that, which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceal’d, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
’Tis the star-spangled banner, Oh! long may it wave,
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.