Fond days that are joys mid our weeping Are set mid your meadows and bowers ;
Our loves that lie dead in your keeping You fondle with grass and with flowers.
Ah, yours was the beauty that blessed us;
The kiss when our troubles were dumb ; The hand that in childhood caressed us —
Oh, ]\Iothcr ! you need us. We come ! Love-gifts from our hell or our heaven
Take, take them and purge with your pain ; All, all our love's best take, and leaven
Our life till 'tis lovely again, —
And true to your height, Mother, tender
And true to the best in us all ! We have pined here alone in your splendor ;
But we speed to your pain lest you fall. Ask : we give ! Is it life or the other?
Is it death ? Take us whole. We are come For the sake of our dream of you, Mother,
Whose love we have longed for at home !
Oh, Lord of our fathers before us,
We have turned from the light of Thy word, We and this Mother who bore us :
Dread Go<l, we were proud : we have erred.
�� �
