Volume 10 — SONGS WITHOUT WORDS

I can not sing the old songs, Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music As choirs of summer birds, "I can not sing the old songs"— I do not know the words. I start on "Hail Columbia," And get to "heav'n-born band," And there I strike an up-grade With neither steam nor sand; "Star Spangled Banner" downs me Right in my wildest screaming, I start all right, but dumbly come To voiceless wreck at "streaming." So, when I sing the old songs, Don't murmur or complain If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum," Should fill the sweetest strain. I love "Tolly um dum di do," And the "trilla-la yeep da"-birds, But "I can not sing the old songs"— I do not know the words.