A song and chorus from 1883
words and music by John T. Rutledge
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Fred Feild:
Lyrics
- While looking today o’er my treasures grown old
In an attic, I’d almost forgot I found many things
Stained with time and its mould
Tho’ most priceless to me was the lot
A dear lock of hair and a picture I prize
And some things that I never could tell
But dearest of all that was dear to my eyes
Was an old faded letter from Nell
Chorus
I felt in my heart that same love that I knew
When together we strayed down the dell
Her sad tears of parting, her vows to be true
When I read my old letter from Nell
- It spoke of my wanderings away from her side
And it told of her anguish at heart
How much of earth’s pleasures she had been denied
And ’twas all from our being apart
She counted the moments ’till I should return
How she loved me her words could not tell
I try to forget, but my heart will still yearn
When I read this old letter from Nell
- I came back again, but ’twas after some years
When sweet letters like that came no more
And I trace on its pages my half boyish tears
For her love was not mine as before
Her vows were forgot as the years passed away
And another his love came to tell
Ah, may they be faithful ’till life shall decay
When I sigh o’er my letter from Nell
Sung here by Vancha March: