oy
I wandered away to the clear rippling stream--
No cankering care to trouble life's dream;--
And we spit on our bait and in whispers we'd talk,
As we threw out our lines in the old Hanging Fork!

IV.

We sat there and fished with the sun beaming down
On the tops of our heads through hats minus crown,
And when I got a bite or you caught a perch
We'd just give our lines a thundering lurch,
And land him high up on the bank in the weeds,
Then string him along with the pumpkin seeds!
O don't you remember the hot, dusky walk,
Along the white pike to the old Hanging Fork?

SWEET SEPTEMBER DAYS.

I.

There's a something in the atmosphere, in sweet September days,
That mantles all the landscape with its languid, dreamy haze;
And you see the leaves a-dropping, in a lazy kind of way,
Where the maple trees are standing in their Summer-time array.

II.

There's a yellowish tinge a-creeping over Nature's emerald sheen,
And the cattle stand, half-sleeping, in the middle of the stream
Where the glassy pool is shaded by the overhanging limb,
And the pebbly bottom's glinting where the silvery minnows swim.

III.

The tasseled corn is nodding, and the crow on drowsy wing
Is sailing o'er the orchard where the ripening apples swing,
And the fleecy clouds are floating in the azure of the sky,
And the gentle breeze is sighing as it's idly wafted by.

IV.

The cantaloupes are ripening in their yellow golden rinds;
And the melons, round and juicy, are a-clinging to the vines;
And the merry, laughing children, in their happy hour of play,
Are a-romping in the meadow and a-sliding down the hay.

V.

The busy bees are buzzing where the grapes with purple blush,
And the hanging bunches tempting with their weight the arbor crush,
And the blue jays are a-wrangling in the wood across the road,
Where the hickory boughs are bending 'neath an extra heavy load.

VI.

Let your poets keep a-singing about the Springtime gay,
And the blossoms and the flowers in the merry month of May--
But the early Autumn splendor, with its sweet September days,
Eclipses boasted Springtime in a thousand kind of ways!

YER OLD COB PIPE.

I.

When the chilling winds of Winter come a-knocking at the door,
And the fleecy flakes are flying and the earth is covered o'er,
And you've supped on sweet potatoes and a 'possum frosted ripe,
Then glory hallelujah! Git yer
Old