An 1868 response to “When You and I Were Young, Maggie”
words and music by James Austin Butterfield
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Benjamin R. Tubb:
Lyrics
- I know dearest Ralph you are aged and gray
Your steps are now feeble and slow
Your once noble form is now bent by the storm
All must weather while waiting below
The merry creek’s bed you say now is dry
A silent the creaking old mill
But “songs without words” are still sung by the birds
Tho’ the green grove is gone from the hill
Chorus
Yet Ralph, dearest Ralph, with our hearts strong and true
Still faithful and trusting and fond
We’ll sing the same songs we sang in days gone
Till we’re called to that bright world beyond
- ‘Tis true dearest Ralph in that city of stone
Lie many dear friends that we love
The casket once fair, is now moldering there
But the jewel is soaring above
The young and the gay and the best are all there
Our own darling’s gone with the rest
It cannot be lone e’er we to join the throng
Moving on to the land of the blest
- Although dearest Ralph we are feeble and old
Still our love time nor age cannot change
Thro’ the journey of life ‘mid the toil and the strife
Naught between us e’er came to estrange
We feel that this earth life is fading away
But we know there’s a better to come
In that bright world above in its sunlight of love
Then again you and I will be young
Sung here by Vancha March: