Explore "The same Old Story" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The same old story told again -- / The maiden droops her head, / The ripening glow of her crimson cheek / Is answering in her stead.
The pleading tone of a trembling voice / Is telling her the way / He loved her when his heart was young / In Youth's sunshiny day: / The trembling tongue, the longing tone, / Imploringly ask why / They can not be as happy now / As in the days gone by.
And two more hearts, tumultuous / With overflowing joy, / Are dancing to the music / Which that dear, provoking boy / Is twanging on his bowstring, / As, fluttering his wings, / He sends his love-charged arrows / While merrily be sings: / "Ho! ho! my dainty maiden, / It surely can not be / You are thinking you are master / Of your heart, when it is me."
And another gleaming arrow / Does the little god's behest, / And the dainty little maiden / Falls upon her lover's breast.
"The same old story told again,"
And listened o'er and o'er, / Will still be new, and pleasing, too, / Till "Time shall be no more. "