Classic Poem

My Mother! o'er wide leagues of land,
And over belts of roaring brine,
I reach thee this unworthy hand,
And strain to touch these lips with thine.

For as when day's bright glare is o'er,
And stealing shadows longer drawn,
The moments, sad and swift, restore
Effects like those of early dawn;

And as the Autumn storms tear
The whirling leaves from swaying boughs,
Revealing, mid the branches bare,
Some nest where birds were used to house;

So, as life's shadows longer grow,
And passion's power and dreams of youth
Decline, the child's heart's outlines show
Amid the bare bleak boughs of truth;

And tho' that heart be well nigh dead,
And never more new joys can thrill,
Its every fluttering impulse fled,
Its build is as you made it still;

Still strong with bonds of home-knit love,
And your own will, which did not quail
Amid all trouble, high above
What's mean, it rocks in life's wild gale.

The cloudlet's frown that did deface
Our strong love's all-embracing joy —
Long past — has left behind no trace;
I love you now as when a boy;

And blend with this small book your name,
Which breathes of babblings round your knee —
Whereat you smiled, half-posed — of fame,
Great deeds, glad flights o'er land and sea;

And therein songs you'll lightly scan,
Wherein my heart for love was fain;
They show me weak; they prove me man;
They're bursts of joy, or births of pain.