It's the curiousest thing in creation, Whenever I hear that old song "Do They Miss Me at Home," I'm so bothered, My life seems as short as it's long!-- Fer ev'rything 'pears like adzackly It 'peared in the years past and gone,-- When I started out sparkin', at twenty, And had my first neckercher on! Though I'm wrinkelder, older and grayer Right now than my parents was then, You strike up that song "Do They Miss Me," And I'm jest a youngster again!-- I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries A-wishin' fer evening to come, And a-whisperin' over and over Them words "Do They Miss Me at Home?" [Illustration] You see, _Marthy Ellen she_ sung it The first time I heerd it; and so, As she was my very first sweetheart, It reminds me of her, don't you know;-- How her face used to look, in the twilight, As I tuck her to Spellin'; and she Kep' a-hummin' that song tel I ast her, Pint-blank, ef she ever missed _me!_ I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it, And hear her low answerin' words; And then the glad chirp of the crickets, As clear as the twitter of birds; And the dust in the road is like velvet, And the ragweed and fennel and grass Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies Of Eden of old, as we pass. "_Do They Miss Me at Home_?" Sing it lower-- And softer--and sweet as the breeze That powdered our path with the snowy White bloom of the old locus'-trees! Let the whipperwills he'p you to sing it, And the echoes 'way over the hill, Tel the moon boolges out, in a chorus Of stars, and our voices is still. But oh! "They's a chord in the music That's missed when _her_ voice is away!" Though I listen from midnight tel morning, And dawn tel the dusk of the day! And I grope through the dark, lookin' upwards And on through the heavenly dome, With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin' The words "Do They Miss Me at Home?" [Illustration] A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR I'm bin a-visitun 'bout a week To my little Cousin's at Nameless Creek, An' I'm got the hives an' a new straw hat, An' I'm come back home where my beau lives at. [Illustration] AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO How tired I am! I sink down all alone Here by the wayside of the Present. Lo, Even as a child I hide my face and moan-- A little girl that may no farther go; The path above me only seems to grow More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered With keener thorns of pain than these below; And O the bleeding feet that falter so And are so very tired!