by Elizabeth Akers Allen
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!
Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—
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
Haply 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!
- Elizabeth Akers Allen
Rock Me To Sleep, Mother
Biography of Elizabeth Akers Allen
Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (October 9, 1832, Strong, Maine – August 7, 1911, Tuckahoe, New York) was an American author, journalist and poet. Born Elizabeth Anne Chase, she grew up in Farmington, Maine, where she attended Farmington Academy. She began to write at the age of fifteen, under the pen name Florence Percy, and in 1855 published under that name a volume of poems entitled Forest Buds. In 1851 she married Marshall S. M. Taylor, but they were divorced within a few years. In subsequent years she travelled through Europe; in Rome she became acquainted with the feminist Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. While in Europee she served as a correspondent for the Portland Transcript and the Boston Evening Gazette. She started contributing to the Atlantic Monthly in 1858[1]. She married Paul Akers, a Maine sculptor whom she had met in Rome, in 1860; he died in 1861. In 1865 she married E. M. Allen, of New York. In 1866 a collection of her poems was published in Boston.
Elizabeth Akers Allen's Works:
- Forest Buds from the Woods of Maine (1855)
- Poems (1866-1869)
- Queen Catharine's Rose (1885)
- The Silver Bridge (1885)
- Two Saints (1888)
- The High-Top Sweeting (1891)
- The Proud Lady of Stavoven (1897)
- The Ballad of the Bronx (1901)
- The Sunset Song (1902)
Elizabeth Akers Allen Poems:
Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight; Make me a child again, just for tonight! Mother, come back from that echoless shore;
At last, when all the summer shine That warmed life's early hours is past, Your loving fingers seek for mine
Oh, dainty daughters of the dawn, most delicate of flowers, How fitly do ye come to deck day's most delicious hours! Evoked by morning's earliest breath, your fragile cups unfold Before the light has cleft the sky, or edged the world with gold.
Two little feet, so small that both may nestle In one caressing hand, - Two tender feet upon the untried border Of life's mysterious land.
THIS realm is sacred to the silent past; Within its drowsy shades are treasures rare Of dust and dreams; the years are long since last
The last lone aster in the wood has died, And taken wings, and flown; The sighing oaks, the evergreens' dark pride, And shivering beeches, keep their leaves alone.
My heart is chilled and my pulse is slow, But often and often will memory go, Like a blind child lost in a waste of snow,
The time for toil is past, and night has come, The last and saddest of the harvest-eves; Worn out with labor long and wearisome, Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home, Each laden with his sheaves.
Make me no vows of constancy, dear friend, To love me, though I die, thy whole life long, And love no other till thy days shall end -
It was the autumn of the year; The strawberry-leaves were red and sere; October's airs were fresh and chill, When, pausing on the windy hill,
Lo, what wonders the day hath brought, Born of the soft and slumbrous snow! Gradual, silent, slowly wrought;
Strange Truth and Beauty are enemies, Treading forever on each other's toes! Strange rhymes are always made of that which is
YOU who dread the cares and labors Of the tenant’s annual quest, You who long for peace and rest,
O lonesome sea-gull, floating far Over the ocean's icy waste, Aimless and wide thy wanderings are, Forever vainly seeking rest: -
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