The Homely Pathetic

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.