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.