ROCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER. MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN. ACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep:-Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep! Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Many a summer the grass has grown green, Over my heart, in the days that are flown, Let it drop over my forehead to-night, Mother, dear mother, the years have been long Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! ODE TO THE BRAVE. W. COLLINS. How sleep the brave who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung, "WHEN TO THE SESSIONS." SHAKSPERE. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end. |