Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MOTHER'S BLESSING, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MOTHER'S BLESSING, by                    
First Line: There in her high-backed chair she sits
Last Line: Has brought her prodigal home again
Subject(s): Mothers


THERE in her high-backed chair she sits,
Sad-eyed woman with silver hair;
The shadows lengthen, the daylight flits,
And she seems to listen, as still she knits,
For the sound of the step on the silent stair.

The lamps flash out in the twilight street,
And many a neighboring casement gleams,
A beacon of home to hurrying feet;
But the white-haired woman in the high-backed seat
Heeds them not, as she knits and dreams--

Dreams of a boy, long years ago
Clasped her neck on a summer day,
Begged her blessing, kissed her, and so
Fled with the speed of a hunted doe
Down to the sea and sailed away!

A boy with an eye as blue and bright
As the cloudless noon of a tropic sky;
A fair-haired lad, and his heart was right--
Was it ten? Yes, ten long years to-night!
Shall I bless him again before I die?

Here at my knee his prayer he said:
"Our Father, all hallowed by thy name;
Give us this day our daily bread,"
Passing my hand o'er his golden head,
While oft the tears in his blue eyes came.
Hark! a step on the silent stair!
A soft, quick step, and a breathing light!
A form kneels low by the high-backed chair,
And the mother's blessing of bygone years
The mother's fingers are twined to-night.

Is it a dream? or can it be,
This tall man, with the beard of gold,
That kneels so low by his mother's knee,
Is the blue-eyed boy that fled to sea
That sunny morn in the day of old?

Yes, it is he, for the joyful tears
Drop from her eyes in a holy rain;
"Our Father" anew from his lips she hears,
And the mother's blessing of bygone years
Has brought her prodigal home again.





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