here the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine

XVIII And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray

XIX The door is softly opened, and--my wife is standing there

_The ordered intermingling_
_of the real and the dream,--_
_The mill above the river,_
_and the mist above the stream;_
_The life of ceaseless labor,_
_brave with song and cheery call--_
_The radiant skies of evening,_
_with its rainbow o'er us all._

AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE!--Is this
her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of
a lover's memory?

A fair, illusive vision
that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence
with the whisper of a prayer?

[Illustration]

Nay, let me then believe in all
the blended false and true--
The semblance of the _old_ love
and the substance of the _new_,--

The _then_ of changeless sunny days--
the _now_ of shower and shine--
But Love forever smiling,--
as that old sweetheart of mine.

[Illustration]

This ever-restful sense of _home_,
though shouts ring in the hall.--
The easy-chair--the old bookshelves
and prints along the wall;

The rare _Habanas_ in their box,
or gaunt churchwarden-stem
That often wags, above the jar,
derisively at them.

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration]

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.

[Illustration]

'Tis a _fragrant_ retrospection,--
for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume
from the blossom of the heart;

And to dream the old dreams over
is a luxury divine--
When my truant fancies wander
with that old sweetheart of mine.

[Illustration]

Though I hear beneath my study,
like a fluttering of wings,
The voices of my children
and the mother as she sings--

I feel