Explore "On a Fly-Leaf of Riley's "Afterwhiles"" by Annie Fellows Johnston on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
UNTO him alone who strays / Sometimes through the yesterdays, / Lingering long in wood and field, / Is the meaning all revealed / Of these songs. Adown the rhymes / Runs a path to bygone times; / But 'tis found by those alone, / Who the fresh green hills have known, / And have felt the tender mood / Of the country solitude; / Who through lanes of pink peach blooms / Used to see the lilac's plumes / Nodding welcome by the door / Where the home-folks come no more.
Blest the singer, then, who leads / Back again through clover meads, / 'Til old scenes we seem to see, / Fair as once they used to be.
Who can call from years long gone, / Friends we trusted, leaned upon; / For whose sake we learned to bless / Toilworn hands and homespun dress.
As he sings of them, and thus / Wafts the pure air back to us / Of the fields, there comes again / Childhood's faith in God and man.