Poetry Archives

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.