Explore "My Dancin'-Days is Over" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
What is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath / And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death? -- / Kindo' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep of a swing, / The first you ever swung in, with yer first sweet-heart, i jing! -- / Yer first picnic -- yer first ice-cream -- yer first o' _ever'thing_ / 'At happened 'fore yer dancin'-days wuz over!
I never understood it -- and I s'pose I never can, -- / But right in town here, yisterd'y, I heerd a pore blindman / A-fiddlin' old "Gray Eagle" -- _And_-sir! I jes stopped my load / O' hay and listened at him -- yes, and watched the way he "bow'd," -- / And back I went, plum forty year', with boys and girls I knowed / And loved, long 'fore my dancin'-days wuz over! --