An Old Sweetheart. As One Who Cons At Evening O'Er An Album All Alone, And Muses On The Faces Of The Friends That He Has Known, So I Turn The Leaves Of Fancy Till, In Shadowy Design, I Find The Smiling Features Of An Old Sweetheart Of Mine. The Lamplight Seems To Glimmer With A Flicker Of Surprise, As I Turn It Low To Rest Me Of The Dazzle In My Eyes, And Light My Pipe In Silence, Save A Sigh That Seems To Yoke Its Fate With My Tobacco And To Vanish With The Smoke. 'Tis A Fragrant Retrospection - For The Loving Thoughts That Start Into Being Are Like Perfumes From The Blossom Of The Heart; And To Dream The Old Dreams Over Is A Luxury Divine - When My Truant Fancy Wanders With That Old Sweeheart Of Mine. Though I Hear, Beneath My Study, Like A Fluttering Of Wings, The Voices Of My Children, And The Mother As She Sings, I Feel No Twinge Of Conscience To Deny Me Any Theme When Care Has Cast Her Anchor In The Harbor Of A Dream In Fact, To Speak In Earnest, I Believe It Adds A Charm To Spice The Good A Trifle With A Little Dust Of Harm - For I Find An Extra Flavor In Memory'S Mellow Wine That Makes Me Drink The Deeper To That Old Sweetheart Of Mine. A Face Of Lily-Beauty, With A Form Of Airy Grace, Floats Out Of My Tobacco As The Genii From The Vase; And I Thrill Beneath The Glances Of A Pair Of Azure Eyes As Glowing As The Summer And As Tender As The Skies. I Can See The Pink Sunbonnet And The Little Checkered Dress She Wore When First I Kissed Her And She Answered The Caress With The Written Declaration That, "As Surely As The Vine Grew 'Round The Stump," She Loved Me - That Old Sweetheart Of Mine. And Again I Feel The Pressure Of Her Slender Little Hand, As We Used To Talk Together Of The Future We Had Planned - When I Should Be A Poet, And With Nothing Else To Do But Write The Tender Verses That She Set The Music To: When We Should Live Together In A Cozy Little Cot Hid In A Nest Of Roses, With A Fairy Garden-Spot, Where The Vines Were Ever Fruited, And The Weather Ever Fine, And The Birds Were Ever Singing For That Old Sweetheart Of Mine: When I Should Be Her Lover Forever And A Day, And She My Faithful Sweetheart Till The Golden Hair Was Gray; And We Should Be So Happy That When Either'S Lips Were Dumb They Would Not Smile In Heaven Till The Other'S Kiss Had Come. * * * * * But, Ah! My Dream Is Broken By A Step Upon The Stair, And The Door Is Softly Opened, And - My Wife Is Standing There; Yet With Eagerness And Rapture All My Visions I Resign To Greet The Living Presence Of That Old Sweetheart Of Mine.