Tom Barbee's Pond.

With its rude walls of stone and its moss-covered roof--
('Tis a picture inwoven with memory's woof)--
It stands there to-day, as it stood in the years
When we knew naught of sorrow--nor anguish--nor tears;
And though far from it now, I can see it at will--
The old spring-house at the foot of the hill!

O flights of fond fancy that deeply inurn
Sweet scenes of our childhood, no more to return!
Which carry us back in visions and dreams
And illumine life's pathway with memory's gleams--
Till we see once again, though with tears the eyes fill,
The old spring-house at the foot of the hill!

There we children, bare-footed, would wander to play,
And wade in the branch that flowed on its way
Through the meadows and fields with current so fleet,
And a gurgle and ...

I.

Give me the patches on my pants, the freckles on my face--
The happy heart where cankering care had never found a place--
And let my bare feet walk again that dirt road down the hill
That led me to the river's brink, beyond the old Mock Mill!


II.

Give me the youthful friends I knew, now scattered far and wide--
The loved ones who have passed beyond the bounds of time and tide--
And let me see the rose's hue that mantled every cheek
When we were run-aways from school, a-fishing in the creek.


III.

Give me the stone-bruise on my heel, the hat without a crown--
The unkempt suit of yellow hair the sun had burnt to brown--
And let me go and soak myself, just where we used to walk,
In that old swimmin' pool we had, up on the Hanging...

I.

It led adown the sloping hill, and through the valley wound,
And where the blooming clover shed its fragrance all around,
And then between the maple trees, across the little brook,
To where the old fence bars let down, a tortuous course it took;
And often are the times I've heard the merry, ringing laugh,
From rosy-ankled children there, along the meadow path.


II.

Three boys--and a little girl whose hair was chestnut gold--
(She's resting now in dreamless sleep beneath the crumbling mold;)--
But I remember her as when, with innocence and glee,
Her laughing eyes looked into mine--for she was dear to me;
And thus it is I love to let the fancy photograph
The merry group that idled there, along the meadow path.


III.

Adown it...

Bright visions of childhood! How dear to the heart
Are the scenes which from memory can never depart!
Undimmed by the sorrows, the grief and the tears
Which have shadowed the pathway of life's later years,
They come like the rainbow which follows the storm--
On remembrance reflected with colors as warm--
And in dreams of delight they picture the fun
That we had long ago when we fished in Clark's Run!

With a can full of worms and a heart full of joy,
Up and down the old stream, a bare-footed boy,
A truant from school, my footsteps would stray
To the deep-shaded pool, or where ripples at play,
As they flowed over beds of smooth-polished stones,
Sang a lullaby sweet in soft undertones!
From the dawn of the day to the set of the sun
What pleasures we've had when ...

The breezes waved the silver grass,
Waist-high along the siding,
And to the creek we ne’er could pass
Three boys on bare-back riding;
Beneath the sheoaks in the bend
The waterhole was brimming,
Do you remember yet, old friend,
The times we ‘went in swimming?’

The days we ‘played the wag’ from school,
Joys shared, and paid for singly,
The air was hot, the water cool,
And naked boys are kingly!
With mud for soap the sun to dry,
A well planned lie to stay us,
And dust well rubbed on neck and face
Lest cleanliness betray us.

And you’ll remember farmer Kutz,
Though scarcely for his bounty,
He leased a forty-acre block,
And thought he owned the county;
A farmer of the old world school,
That men grew hard and grim in,
He drew...

"Perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things"
--MACKENZIE.

Each scene of youth to me's a pleasing toy,
Which memory, like a lover, doats upon;
And mix'd with them I am again a boy,
With tears and sighs regretting pleasures gone.

Ah! with enthusiast excesses wild
The scenes of childhood meet my moist'ning eye,
And with the very weakness of a child
I feel the raptures of delights gone by.

And still I fancy, as around I stroll
Each boyish scene, to mark the sport and game,
Others are living with a self-like soul,
That think, and love such trifles, just the same.

An old familiar spot I witness here,
With young companions where we oft have met:
Tho' since we play'd 'tis bleach'd with m...