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My Mother's Grave
My Mother's grave beside the road—alas!
I stoop with hand to part the tangled grass.
In vain I search for the sad earthen mound,
But naught remains to view, save sunken ground.
On marble slab I read my mother's name;
Here, in years gone, her children often came;
Flowers they would bring, whose scent the air bestrewed
While tears, yea bitter tears, her name bedewed,
Here father, mother, precious kindred all,
Long years ago obeyed the imperious call,
And here, beneath the ground whereon I tread,
Rest the loved ashes of the sleeping dead.
On yonder wooded knoll that swells hard by
My mother's home amid the grove I spy;
The towering elms, the spreading maple trees,
The old sweet boughs, the hum of busy bees.
All fill my fancy with the dreams of yore,
And bid me think of days that are no more!
That old, old rural home of years ago—
Could it but speak of bygone joy or woe!
Of happy girls and boys, a festive train
That tramped the winding paths and grassy plain!
How fast the changing years go fleeting by!
As from a mound beneath th' ethereal sky
We gaze along the road o'er which we came
And find, alas! no home nor friend the same!
"Once more I see along the distant years
A face long gone, with all its smiles and tears;"
Could I but press again my mother's hand,
And home, with her, beneath the old roof stand!
I stoop with hand to part the tangled grass.
In vain I search for the sad earthen mound,
But naught remains to view, save sunken ground.
On marble slab I read my mother's name;
Here, in years gone, her children often came;
Flowers they would bring, whose scent the air bestrewed
While tears, yea bitter tears, her name bedewed,
Here father, mother, precious kindred all,
Long years ago obeyed the imperious call,
And here, beneath the ground whereon I tread,
Rest the loved ashes of the sleeping dead.
On yonder wooded knoll that swells hard by
My mother's home amid the grove I spy;
The towering elms, the spreading maple trees,
The old sweet boughs, the hum of busy bees.
All fill my fancy with the dreams of yore,
And bid me think of days that are no more!
That old, old rural home of years ago—
Could it but speak of bygone joy or woe!
Of happy girls and boys, a festive train
That tramped the winding paths and grassy plain!
How fast the changing years go fleeting by!
As from a mound beneath th' ethereal sky
We gaze along the road o'er which we came
And find, alas! no home nor friend the same!
"Once more I see along the distant years
A face long gone, with all its smiles and tears;"
Could I but press again my mother's hand,
And home, with her, beneath the old roof stand!
1917
