The morning comes, but brings no sun;
The sky with storm is overrun;
And here I sit in my room alone,
And feel, as I hear the tempest moan,
Like one who hath lost the last and best,
The dearest dweller from his breast!
Sweet is the image of the brooding dove!
T. Buchanan Read. 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,
Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd Asks no return for passion's wayward birth.
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits;
That common chances common men could bear; Ah! bless'd are they for whom, 'mid all their
That when the sea was calm, all boats alike
Show'd mastership in floating; Fortune's blows,
When most struck home, being gentle wounded,
That faithful and unalter'd love remains;
Who, life wreck'd round them-hunted from their
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!
Mrs. Norton.
She was my friend- I had but her-
No other upon earth- and as for heaven,
I am as they that seek a sign, to whom
No sign is given. My mother! Oh, my mother!
Taylor's Edwin the Fair.
Would, Mother, thou couldst hear me tell
How oft, amid my brief career,
For sins and follies lov'd too well,
Hath fallen the free, repentant tear.
And, in the waywardness of youth,
How better thoughts have given to me
Contempt for error, love for truth,
'Mid sweet remembrances of thee.
For when she us'd to leave
The fireside every eve,
I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.
How often has the thought
Of my mourn'd mother brought
I miss thee, my mother, when young health has Peace to my troubled spirit, and new power
James Montgomery,
There are smiles and tears in the mother's eyes,
For her new-born babe beside her lies;
Oh, heaven of bliss! when the heart o'erflows
With the rapture a mother only knows!
Henry Ware, Jr.
Our little ones inquire of me, where is their mother
gone?
What answer can I make to them, except with
For if I say, to heaven - then the poor things
How far is it, and where, and when their mother
Yes, I have left the golden shore,
Where childhood 'midst the roses play'd:
Those sunny dreams will come no more,
That youth a long bright Sabbath made.
Yet while those dreams of memory's eye
Arise in many a glittering train,
My soul goes back to infancy,
And hears my mother's song again!
Number thy lamps of love, and tell me now
How many canst thou re-light at the stars,
And blush not at their burning? One-one only-
Lit while your pulses by one heart kept time,
And fed with faithful fondness to your grave·
(Though sometimes with a hand stretch'd back
from heaven)
Steadfast through all things-near when most
forgot-
And with its finger of unerring truth
Pointing the lost way in thy darkest hour-
One lamp-thy mother's love - amid the stars
Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before
The throne of God burn through eternity—
Holy—as it was lit and lent thee here.
Dear mother, of the thousand strings which waken
The sleeping harp within the human heart,
The longest kept in tune, though oft forsaken,
Is that in which the mother's voice hath part:
Her still, small voice, which e'en the carcless ear
Turneth with reverence deep and pure delight to
hear.
Mrs. E. J. Eames.
My mother! at that holy name
Within my bosom there's a gush
Of feeling which no time can tame,
A feeling which for years of fame
I would not, could not crush!
George P. Morris
When we see the flower seeds wafted
From the nurturing mother tree,
Tell we can, wherever planted,
What the harvesting will be;
Never from the blasting thistle
Was there gather'd golden grain,—
Willis Gaylord Clark. Thus the seal the child receiveth
From its mother will remain.
And while my soul retains the power
To think upon each faded year,
In every bright or shadow'd hour,
My heart shall hold my mother dear.
The hills may tower— - the waves may rise,
And roll between my home and me;
Yet shall my quenchless memories
Turn with undying love to thee.
Mother! dear mother! the feelings nurst
As I hung at thy bosom, clung round thee first.
"I was the earliest link in love's warm chain.
"I is the only one that will long remain:
And as year by year, and day by day,
Some friend still trusted drops away,
Mother! dear mother! oh! dost thou see
How the shorten'd chain brings me nearer thee?
Willis's Earlier Poems.
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
Earth held no symbol, had no living sign
To image forth the mother's deathless love;
And so the tender care the righteous prove,
Beneath the ever-watching Eye divine,
Was given as type to show how pure a shrine
The mother's heart was hallow'd from above;
And how her mortal hopes must intertwine
With hopes immortal;-and she may not move
From this high station which her Saviour seal'd,
When in maternal arms he lay reveal'd.
O wondrous power! how little understood,—
Entrusted to the mother's mind alone,
To fashion genius, form the soul for good,
Inspire a West, or train a Washington!
Mrs. Hale's Poems.
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