Mother.
When evening falls softly, with far away dreaming,
Oft steals o’er my spirit a rapturous seeming—
I feel the light touch of her hand as of old,
When bending above me with good night caresses,
She lovingly pushed back the long heavy tresses,
And smoothed out the tangles of gold.
Touch memory’s harp in the silence of even,
And loved ones will leave e’en the raptures of heaven,
And come to us then when the gates are ajar:
With mother’s face, ever most central and tender,
They light all the Past with a rosy-hued splendor
And the soul’s secret chamber’s unbar.
From hidden recesses they bring out its treasures—
Among them are shining youth’s dream-lighted pleasures,
When mother-love blent with, and hallowed them all;
The haunts that the years with their sunsets have gilded,
The castles of beauty that child-fancy builded,
All come in the gloaming at memory’s call.
’Twas down by the river, where bluebells were sweetest
And swift-footed hours forever ran fleetest,
Enthralled by the charm, that I loved most to roam—
To watch where the sunshine and ripple wove wimples,
Like smiles, on a rosy face, dancing with dimples,
Forgetful of duty till mother called home.
Right-angled with the river-bank’s water-worn ledges
The forest and farm knit their raveled-out edges,
In a brambled rail-fence. From the pasture’s green field,
Thro’ the edge of the woodland, a path, fringed with mosses
And bushy green tangles with clematis flosses,
Half the charms of the deep wood revealed.
When sunset was tinting each shadowy hollow
’Twas gladness, the kine, from the pasture, to follow
And dream, as I wandered, of fairy and gnome—
To loiter ’mong ferns, with great trees spreading over,
And breathe the perfume of wild roses and clover
Enrapt, until mother called home.
I’m lingering now on the banks of the River—
The sunset of Time on its ripples a-quiver—
How peaceful the flowing—no turmoil or foam—
A luminous mist o’er the landscape is falling—
The evening has come, I hear a voice calling,—
’Tis mother’s voice calling me home.