Mother’s Recall + 

Come back to me, O ye, my children: + 

Come back to the home as of yore; + 

As my longing eye peers through the vista of years, + 

Comes the heart-throbbing more and more. + 

I sit by the casement and listen + 

To the fall of the soft, sobbing rain, + 

E’en the winds gently sigh as if loth to reply⁠— + 

In vain, fond mother, in vain. + 

Are ye gone for aye? + 

Shall I no more hear + 

The ring and the din of glee? + 

Have my nestlings flown and left me alone? + 

Shall their faces, I no more see? + 

I sit, and I wait while the days go by, + 

And the months merge slow into years; + 

Till the twilight deep and the mystic sleep, + 

And the hopes give place to fears. + 

When the Christmas chimes with its holy rhymes + 

Ring out o’er the frosty plain, + 

Then I sit, and sigh for the “Sweet bye and bye”⁠— + 

But the answer comes, “Mother in vain.” + 

Each one of us, children, have gone forth + 

To fight out life’s battles alone; + 

And the future must prove if your labor of love, + 

Has, like bread on the waters, been thrown. + 

So the twilight comes⁠—and the fire burns low⁠— + 

And the day is ebbing fast⁠— + 

Soon the merry chimes and the hallowed rhymes + 

Will be numbered with the Past. + 

But with hopeful eyes I’ll scan the skies, + 

Perchance, ere next Christmas-tide, + 

Will my children come to their own dear home, + 

And their place at mother’s side. + 