Silver Carols

My grandfather often wrote of his childhood, especially in his later years. Here's one from 1960.

"When I was a school youngster we used to sing a skating song. The words of the chorus come to mind:

"Off, off to the ice we go, on, on with our skates so bright. 

Off, off to the ice we go, so merry, so happy and light."

There was a song, too, for the springtime and it started with the words:

"Spring is on the mountain, Verdure on the hill;

Springing from the fountain, runs the silver rill.

Modest flowers are blooming on the velvet mead'

All the air perfuming – brother, sow the seed."

The tunes come to mind. Maybe it is good I cannot vocalize through these words.

Well one good result of those songs was learning of two new words – verdure and mead!

For summer there was a seasonal ditty that went:

"Our boat is trimmed with sail and oar, and all prepared to leave the shore;

How pleasantly we'll sail along and listen to the boatman's song.

There may have been an autumn song but if so my memory is faulty and it does not come to mind. We do remember song book title was "Silver Carols.

Kinda wish we had a copy of that old song book. I would take it to Golly's Folly and when alone in the wilds, I might turn loose my vocal organs to make the welkin ring in the picturesque Nine Mile Valley, with only chipmunks to make up the audience."

Though it's 63 years too late and the old man has been gone for nearly 54 of those years, I found a copy of Silver Carols in its entirety in a place he could never imagine in his wildest dreams - this man who began life shortly after the Civil War and lived to see man land on the moon.