My Old Tunes
My old tunes are ra-ther bro-ken,
And they come from far a-way,
Bring-ing just a lit-tle to-ken
Of a long for-got-ten day;When the chil-dren came to lis-ten,
T’oth-er side the gar-den fence,
And my heart leapt out of pris-on,
At the gift—of sev-en pence!Just be-yond the hay-stack’s sha-dow,
Long a-go that leaf-y June,
How they danced about the mea-dow
At the ris-in’ of the moon!While from out a rail-way car-riage,
Stand-ing rea-dy and a-light,
Stepped their guests as to a mar-riage
Asked to dine—and stay the night!Sweep and Laugh-er danced to-geth-er,
And a man who had a lamp
Ca-pered light-ly as a fea-ther
With a la-zy look-ing tramp;When a voice dis-turbed the Lan-cers:
“Chil-dren, come, it’s time for bed”
“Rail-way car-riages, Sprites and Dancers
Flew up—to the stars instead!Now I am a Con-stel-la-tion,
Free from ev-’ry earth-ly care,
Play-ing night-ly at my sta-tion
For the Big and Lit-tle Bear.But my tunes are still en-tranc-ing
As that night in leaf-y June,
When I caught the chil-dren dan-cing
With the Sprites be-neath the moon!Still the children come to hear me
In the lane or din-gy street;
Still the hea-vy pavement near me
Flutters to their hap-py feet;For my tunes are ne’er for-got-ten,
And they bring the scent of musk;
Grown up folk may call ’em rot-ten,
But I’m looked—for when it’s dusk!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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