Query any poem you want.

As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,

And lazily leaning back in my chair,

Enjoying myself in a general way -

Allowing my thoughts a holiday

From weariness, toil and care, -

My fancies - doubtless, for ventilation -

Left ajar the gates of my mind, -

And Memory, seeing the situation,

Slipped out in street of "Auld Lang Syne."

  

Wandering ever with tireless feet

Through scenes of silence, and jubilee

Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet

Were thronging the shadowy side of the street

As far as the eye could see;

Dreaming again, in anticipation,

The same old dreams of our boyhood's days

That never come true, from the vague sensation

Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways.

  

Away to the house where I was born!

And there was the selfsame clock that ticked

From the close of dusk to the burst of morn,

When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn

And helped when the apples were picked.

And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf,

With the gilded collar and yellow eyes,

Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself

Sound asleep with the dear surprise.

  

And down to the swing in the locust tree,

Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground

And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three

Or four such other boys used to be

Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round:"

And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest,

And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed

Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed,

The old ghosts romp through the best days dead!

  

And again I gazed from the old school-room

With a wistful look of a long June day,

When on my cheek was the hectic bloom

Caught of Mischief, as I presume -

He had such a "partial" way,

It seemed, toward me. - And again I thought

Of a probable likelihood to be

Kept in after school - for a girl was caught

Catching a note from me.

  

And down through the woods to the swimming-hole -

Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows, -

And we never cared when the water was cold.

And always "clucked" the boy that told

On the fellow that tied the clothes. -

When life went so like a dreamy rhyme

That it seems to me now that then

The world was having a jollier time

Than it ever will have again.