TO MY MOTHER.
Dear Mother, I am thinking, as the twilight gathers gray,Of friends who knew and petted me in childhood's happy day,Of pleasures dead and buried, of sunny hopes that smiledBeyond the bright horizon when I was but a child.The great book of the by-gone lies open in my hand;And, as I turn 1its pages, I seem again to standBeside you, darling Mother, scarcely higher than your knee,Looking at your busy fingers making something nice for me.I can see my little brother, too, the one that's gone before,With all his pretty playthings at your feet upon the floor;How he tossed them all behind him when he tired of his play,
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