Dedication
To my Mother
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Sweet! when first my baby ear
Curled itself and learned to hear,
’Twas your silver-singing voice
Made my baby heart rejoice.
Hushed upon your tender breast,
Soft you sang me to my rest;
Waking, when I sought my play,
Still your singing led the way.
Cradle songs, more soft and low
Than the bird croons on the bough;
Olden ballads, grave and gay,
Warrior’s chant, and lover’s lay.
So my baby hours went
In a cadence of content,
To the music and the rhyme
Keeping tune and keeping time.
So you taught me, too, ere long,
All our life should be a song,—
Should a faltering prelude be
To the heavenly harmony;
And with gracious words and high,
Bade me look beyond the sky,
To the Glory throned above,
To th’ eternal Light and Love.
Many years have blossomed by:
Far and far from childhood I;
Yet its sunrays on me fall,
Here among my children all.