The Old Ravine.

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JUST back of my dear old home it rolled,
With many a crumpled and rocky fold,
Hedged ’round with cherry and locust trees
Their strong arms toyed with the breeze—
Like knights arrayed for march or fight
They stood with waving plumes of white.
And O! that valley’s inmost room
Was a mass of ivy and violet bloom;
The larkspur shook from its purple crest
A dew-drop down on the lily’s breast;
The blue-bell dozed on the rivulet’s brink,
And the myrtle leaned o’er the edge to drink.
Even now, as I write, through the open door
I catch a sound of the cataract’s roar,
And see the girls just out from school
Knee-deep in the ravine’s limpid pool;
And the boys, ah, me! how plain can I see
Them stealing the bark from the slippery tree.
The door slams back, it is scarce apart;
With steady eye and fluttering heart,
I watch the girls up the valley turn,
In search of peppermint and fern;
And the boys are waving their caps to me,
As they stand in that ragged and torn old tree.
In some wild way, I never knew how,
I climbed to the swing on that elm tree’s bough;
Was twitt’ring a song as I used to do,
And counting the clouds in the sky’s soft blue,
When the girls came out from the valley’s shade,
And earth into heaven seemed then to fade.
’Twas the Eden of old, and I was a child
(I have thought of it since and often have smiled);
Sitting there in the swing, with the girls at my feet,
And the boys overhead—my joy was complete;
What a mockery, then, to awaken and part
With the happy illusion—how hollow my heart!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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