The Dead Mother
"If still you love your old play-mate
You loved so well of yore—
Go up, go up, and tell my mother
That Roland's at the door."
"O how shall I tell you. Lord Roland,
The news that you must know?—
Your mother is dead, Lord Roland—
She died a month ago."
When day was gone and night was come,
When all things turn to sleep.
Lord Roland in the darkness, then.
Learned that a man can weep.
"O why did I stay so long from home
And tarry so many a year.
And now I'll see thee never again.
Thy voice I'll never hear.
"There's a flood of death betwixt us twain,
A flood that is dark and dour;
But if my prayer can reach thee, Mother,
And if the dead have power,
Come back from Heaven, come back, my Mother,
An' it be but for an hour."
It's a long, long road from Heaven to earth;
And a weary road, I ween.
For whoso passed the gates of Death
To reach those gardens green.
'Tis a long, long road from the heart o'the grave
To the home where kinsmen sleep;
But a mother thinks no road too long
Hearing her children weep.
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