To Miss Mary Agnes Benedict, of New York
"If You Love Me, Tell Me So" [not dated; never published]
Words by Emilia Lillian Whiting
Music by John Hill Hewitt, 1801-1890

[Source:  manuscript photocopy from
Special Collections, Emory University,
The Robert W. Woodruff Library
Atlanta, GA 30322-2870]

1. 
If you love me, tell me so, 
Wait not till the summer glow 
Fades in aut-umn's changeful light, 
Am-ber clouds and purple night. 
Wait not till the winter hours 
Heap with snow-drifts all the flow'rs, 
Till the tide of life runs low, 
If you love me, tell me so.

REFRAIN [sung after each verse]
Tell me tell me, 
If you love me, tell me so.

2. 
If you love me, tell me so, 
While the river's dreamy flow 
Holds the love-enchanted hours 
Steeped in music crown'd with flow'rs; 
Ere the summer's dreamy days 
Fade in mystic purple haze­­ 
Ere is hush'd the music flow, 
If you love me, tell me so.

3. 
If you love me, tell me so, 
Let me hear the sweet words flow; 
Let me, in life's morning fair 
Fell your roses on my hair 
While in womanhood's first bloom, 
Ere shall come the dark day's gloom; 
In the first fresh morning glow­­ 
If you love me, tell me so.