Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
Do you remember where
The willows used to screen
The water flowing fair?
The mill-stream’s banks of green
Where first our love begun,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one?
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
Do you remember how
From th’ old bridge we would lean—
The bridge that’s broken now—
To watch the minnows sheen
Through ripples of the Run,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one?
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
Do you remember, too,
The old beech-tree, between
Whose roots the windflowers grew?
Where oft we sat at E’en,
When stars were few or none,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one?
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
The bark is grown around
The names I cut therein,
And the true-love knot that bound;
The love-knot, clear and clean,
I carved when our love begun,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one.
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
The roof of the farm-house gray
Is fallen and mossy green;
Its rafters rot away:
The old path scarce is seen
Where oft our feet would run,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one.
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
Through each old tree and bough
The lone winds cry and keen—
The place is haunted now
With ghosts of what-has-been,
And dreams of love-long-done,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one.
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
There, in your world of wealth,
There, where you move a queen,
Broken in heart and health,
Does there ever rise a scene
Of days, your thought would shun,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one?
Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean,
Here, ’mid the rose and rue,
Would God that your grave were green,
And I were lying, too!
Here on the hill, I mean,
Where oft we laughed in the sun,
When you were seventeen,
And I was twenty-one.