To My Mother
Written in a Pocket Book, 1822
They tell us of an Indian tree,
Which, howsoe’er the sun and sky
May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom wide and high,
Far better loves to bend its arms
Downward again to that dear earth,
From which the life that, fills and warms
Its grateful being, first had birth.
’Tis thus, tho’ wooed by flattering friends,
And fed with fame (if fame it be)
This heart, my own dear mother, bends,
With love’s true instinct, back to thee!