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.

MARTHY ELLEN.

  They’s nothin’ in the name to strike
  A feller more’n common like! 
  ’Taint liable to git no praise
  Ner nothin’ like it nowadays;
  An’ yit that name o’ her’n is jest
  As purty as the purtiest—­
  And more ’n that, I’m here to say
  I’ll live a-thinkin’ thataway
      And die far Marthy Ellen!

  It may be I was prejudust
  In favor of it from the fust—­
  ’Cause I kin ricollect jest how
  We met, and hear her mother now
  A-callin’ of her down the road—­
  And, aggervatin’ little toad!—­
  I see her now, jes’ sort o’ half-
  Way disapp’inted, turn and laugh
      And mock her—­“Marthy Ellen!”

  Our people never had no fuss,
  And yit they never tuck to us;
  We neighbered back and foreds some;
  Until they see she liked to come
  To our house—­and me and her
  Were jest together ever’whur
  And all the time—­and when they’d see
  That I liked her and she liked me,
  They’d holler “Marthy Ellen!”