Years did I vainly seek the good… Prayed, fasted, and did penance di… Did kneel, with bleeding knees and… And mouth the dust, with ashes on… Yea, still with knotted scourge th…

O in the depths of midnight What fancies haunt the brain! When even the sigh of the sleeper Sounds like a sob of pain. A sense of awe and of wonder

Neglected now is the old guitar And moldering into decay; Fretted with many a rift and scar That the dull dust hides away, While the spider spins a silver st…

The orchard lands of Long Ago! O drowsy winds, awake, and blow The snowy blossoms back to me, And all the buds that used to be! Blow back along the grassy ways

Barefooted boys scud up the street Or skurry under sheltering sheds; And schoolgirl faces, pale and swe… Gleam from the shawls about their… Doors bang; and mother-voices call

With a sweeter voice than birds Dare to twitter in their sleep, Pipe for me a tune of words, Till my dancing fancies leap Into freedom vaster far

When we hear Uncle Sidney tell About the long-ago An’ old, old friends he loved so w… When _he_ was young—My-oh!— Us childern all wish _we’d 'a’_ bi…

A deep, delicious hush in earth an… A gracious lull—since, from its wa… The morn has been a feverish, rest… In which the pulse of Summer ran… And riotous, as though its heart w…

Such was the Child-World of the l… The little world these children us… Johnty, the oldest, and the best,… Of the five happy little Hoosier… Inhabiting this wee world all thei…

All were quite gracious in their p… Bud’s Fairy; but another stir abo… That murmur was occasioned by a sw… Young lady-caller, from a neighbor… Who rose reluctantly to say good-n…

Sence I tuk holt o’ Gibbses’ Chu… And be’n a-handlin’ the concern, I’ve travelled round the grand old… Of Indiany, lots, o’ late—! I’ve canvassed Crawferdsville and…

When Dicky was sick In the night, and the clock, As he listened, said ‘Tick– Atty—tick-atty—tock!’ He said that _it_ said,

Noey Bixler ketched him, and fetc… When he’s ist a little teenty-ween… 'Bout as big as little pups, an’ t… An’ Pa gived Noey fifty cents, wh… Nen he buyed a chain fer him, an’…

They ain’t no style about 'em, And they’re sorto’ pale and faded, Yit the doorway here, without ‘em, Would be lonesomer, and shaded With a good ’eal blacker shudder

Time of crisp and tawny leaves, And of tarnished harvest sheaves, And of dusty grasses—weeds— Thistles, with their tufted seeds Voyaging the Autumn breeze