I hear the cattle lowin’; I go berryin’ in the glades;
I smell the harvest ripenin’ over in the corner lot;
I see Josiah bringin’ home that last new pair he bought;
I remember how together, when the children went away—
Grown big an’ married—by the fire we sat at close of day;
An’ how together we had lived there fifty year—come fall.
I wisht Josiah’n’ me was back—a-workin’ hard an’ all.
It’s sugarin’-time up country; but never once again
Shall I, now goin’ on eighty, see the spring a-comin’ in
The old way, thro’ the maple trees, ’crost the pastur’s brown;