Sweet is the image of the brooding dove! -
Holy as Heaven a mother's tender love!
The love of many prayers and many tears,
Which changes not with dim declining years-
The only love which on this teeming earth
Asks no return from Passion's wayward birth;
The only love that, with a touch divine,
Displaces from the heart's most secret shrine
The idol Self. Oh! prized beneath thy due
When life's untried affections all are new
Love, from whose calmer hope and holier rest
(Like a fledged bird, impatient of the nest)
The human heart, rebellious, springs to seek
Delights more vehement, in ties more weak;
How strange to us appears, in after-life,
That term of mingled carelessness and strife,
When guardianship so gentle gall'd our pride,
When it was holiday to leave thy side,
When, with dull ignorance that would not learn,
We lost those hours that never can return
Hours, whose most sweet communion Nature meant
Should be in confidence and kindness spent,
That we (hereafter mourning) might believe
In human faith, though all around deceive;
Might weigh against the sad and startling crowd
Of ills which wound the weak and chill the proud,
Of woes 'neath which (despite of stubborn will,
Philosophy's vain boast, and erring skill)
The strong heart downward like a willow bends,
Failure of love,— and treachery of friends,—
Our recollections of the undefiled,
The sainted tie, of parent and of child!
Oh! happy days! Oh, years that glided by,
Scarce chronicled by one poor passing sigh!
When the dark storm sweeps past us, and the soul
Struggles with fainting strength to reach the goal;
When the false baits that lured us only cloy,
What would we give to grasp your vanish'd joy!
From the cold quicksands of Life's treacherous shore
The backward light our anxious eyes explore,
Measure the miles our wandering feet have come,
Sinking heart-weary, far away from home,
Recall the voice that whisper'd love and peace
The smile that bid our early sorrows cease,
And long to bow our grieving heads, and weep
Low on the gentle breast that lull'd us first to sleep!
Ah! bless'd are they for whom 'mid all their pains
That faithful and unalter'd love remains;
Who, Life wreck'd round them-hunted from their rest,
And by all else forsaken or distress'd,
Claim, in one heart, their sanctuary and shrine-
As, I, my Mother, claim'd my place in thine!
MY MOTHER
BY JOSEPHINE RICE CREELMAN
I walk upon the rocky shore,
Her strength is in the ocean's roar.
I glance into the shaded pool,
Her mind is there so calm and cool.
I hear sweet rippling of the sea,
Naught but her laughter 'tis to me.
I gaze into the starry skies,
And there I see her wondrous eyes.
I look into my inmost mind,
And here her inspiration find.
In all I am and hear and see,
My precious mother is with me.
SEVEN TIMES FOUR. MATERNITY
Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall,
When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses,
And dance with the cuckoo-buds, slender and small: Here's two bonny boys, and here's mother's own lasses, Eager to gather them all.
Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
Mother shall thread them a daisy chain;
Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow,
That loved her brown little ones, loved them full
Sing, "Heart thou art wide though the house be but
Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters,
And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters, Maybe he thinks on you now!
Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
Fair yellow daffodils stately and tall;
A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,
And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall, Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its
There was once a boat on a billow:
Lightly she rocked to her port remote,
And the foam was white in her wake like snow,
And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow.
I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat
Went courtesying over the billow,
I marked her course till a dancing mote
She faded out on the moonlit foam,
And I stayed behind in the dear loved home;
And my thoughts all day were about a boat,
And my dreams upon the pillow.
I pray you hear my song of a boat,
For it is but short:
My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat,
Long I looked out for the lad she bore,
On the open desolate sea,
And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore,
For he came not back to me
There was once a nest in a hollow, Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed, Soft and warm, and full to the brim; Vetches leaned over it purple and dim, With buttercup buds to follow.
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