LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954)

Old Home Day
Language: English 
Go my songs! Draw Daphnis from the city.

A minor tune from Todd's opera house,
comes to me as I cross the square, there,
We boys used to shout the songs that rouse
the hearts of the brave and fair.
As we march along down Main street, behind the village band,
The dear old trees, with their arch of leaves
seem to grasp us by the hand.
While we step along to the tune of an Irish song,
Glad but wistful sounds the old church bell,
for underneath's a note of sadness,
"Old home town" farewell.

A corner lot, a white picket fence,
daisies almost everywhere, there,
We boys used to play "One old cat,"
and base hits filled the summer air.
As we march along on Main street,
of that "Down East" Yankee town,
Comes a sign of life,
from the "3rd Corps" fife,
- strains of an old breakdown;
While we step along to the tune of [it's]* Irish song,
Comes another sound we all know well.
It takes us way back forty years,
that little red schoolhouse bell.

As we march along down Main street, behind the village band,
The dear old trees, with their arch of leaves
seem to grasp us by the hand.
While we step along to the tune of an Irish song,
Glad but wistful sounds the old church bell,
for underneath's a note of sadness,
"Old home town" farewell.

* [sic]

Text Authorship:

  • by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954), "Old Home Day", 1913?, from Five Street Songs, no. 1. [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 32
Word count: 236

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris