O the old Cider Press, how its thin yellow thread
Runs backward to-night to the days that are dead,
When it fell from the mill with mellifluous sound,
Where the apples went in, and the oxen went round!
O the great honest eyes of the slow-moving steers
Seem to look at me now, like my own full of tears,
As I smell the sweet odor, which must be, I guess,
A breath of the past from the old Cider Press.
O the old Cider Press on the old orchard hill!
The brook was the hem and the forest the frill
Of that outskirt of Eden we called the "old farm,"
Where all knew the Lord and took hold of his arm.
