Happy Mother’s Day
May 12, 2012
Still life by Giovanna Garzoni
Rock Me To Sleep
Elizabeth Akers Allen
Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight;
Make me a child again, just for tonight!
Mother, come back from that echoless shore;
Take me again in 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, turn 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 tonight for your presence again;
Come from the silence, 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 tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light!
For, with its sunny-edged shadows once more,
Haply will throng all the 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 to your lullaby song;
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream;
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep —
Rock me sleep, mother — rock me to sleep!
