Backward,turn backward,O Time,in your flight
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother,come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep
Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!
Backward,flow backward,O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense,tears all in vain
Take them,and give me my childhood again
I have grown weary of dust and decay
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away
Weary of sowing for others to reap
Rock me to sleep,mother rock me to sleep!
Tired of the hollow,the base,the untrue
Mother,O mother,my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green
Blossomed and faded,our faces between
Yet,with strong yearning and passionate pain
Long I tonight for your presence again
Come from the silence so long and so deep
Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!
Come, let your brown hair,just lighted with gold
Fall on your shoulders again as of old
Let it drop over my forehead tonight
Shading my faint eyes away from the light
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Happly will throng the sweet visions of yore
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace
With your light lashes just sweeping my face
Never hereafter to wake or to weep—
Rock me to sleep, mother– rock me to sleep!