I'm wandering back tonight
To visions calm and bright,
As I sit alone within the firelight's glow.
To the time when boyish dreams
Were tinged with rosy dreams
In the merry,merry days of long ago.
One scene amongst them all
With pleasure I recall,
As memory lingers fondly with me still:
Oh ! the pleasure and the joy,
When I was a laughing boy,
And went sliding over Granny Bates' Hill.

I see thy berg-lined shore,
My island home once more.
I tread thy glassy snow-slopes once again,
Tho' I've wandered far away
Across the rolling sea,
To find a home beside the hills of Maine.
Thy cherry-cheeked boys,
Thy girls with romping noise,
Far up thro' memory's vale they throng at will;
I see the hilside white;
I see the moonlight;
I see the slides of Granny Bates' Hill.

The snows of sixty year
Have tinged and streaked my hair,
I've many brawny sons to manhood grown;
I see the churchyard still
Beneath the pine-clad hill,
Where after death my body will be thrown.
But in the brands to-night
I trail a vision bright:
A scene that makes my inmost spirit thrill,
And I waft a backward sigh
For the youthful days gone by,
When sliding over Granny Bates' Hill.