East and West: Poems Part 11

The dews are heavy on my brow; My breath comes hard and low; Yet, mother, dear, grant one request, Before your boy must go.

Oh! lift me ere my spirit sinks, And ere my senses fail: Place me once more, O mother dear!

Astride the old fence-rail.

The old fence-rail, the old fence-rail!

How oft these youthful legs, With Alice' and Ben Bolt's, were hung Across those wooden pegs.

'Twas there the nauseating smoke Of my first pipe arose: O mother, dear! these agonies Are far less keen than those.

I know where lies the hazel dell, Where simple Nellie sleeps; I know the cot of Nettie Moore, And where the willow weeps.

I know the brookside and the mill: But all their pathos fails Beside the days when once I sat Astride the old fence-rails.

III.--Swiss Air.

I'm a gay tra, la, la, With my fal, lal, la, la, And my bright-- And my light-- Tra, la, le. [Repeat.]

Then laugh, ha, ha, ha, And ring, ting, ling, ling, And sing fal, la, la, La, la, le. [Repeat.]