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!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,--
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,-
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,-
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;--
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed, and faded our faces between,
Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain
Long I to-night for your presence again.
Comes from the silence so long and so deep;―
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!
Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,-
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep;——
Rock me to sleep, mother,--rock me to sleep!
Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Snading my faint eyes away from the light:
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;―
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
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,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
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.
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