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Show You led with kindly hand A child Into the light of truth And made an honest man. Mother love and love for mother have been the inspiration for some of our best-known poets and have resulted re-sulted In the writing of some of our best-known and best-loved poems. Rudyard Kipling was writing for all of us and expressing a belief which all of us hold when he wrote MOTHER O' MINE If I were hanged on the highest hill Mother o' Mine, I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o' Mine. If I were drowned In the deepest sea. Mother o' Mine, 1 know whose tears would come down to me, Mother o" Mine, Mother o' Mine. If I were damned of body and soul 1 know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o' Mine. Mother o' Mine. Louis Cntermeyer confessed for all of us the inadequacy of mere words to express our debt to the women who gave us birth when he wrote TO MY MOTHER Poor recompense to you were I to fill This page with rhyme and rhetoric to display Only the poet and thereby betray My earliest thoughts for mere poetic skill. Poor recompense. Indeed, were 1 to thrill With my own music, turn to you and say, "I give you these, my verses; let them pay , For all you gave and all you give me still." I am too poor to buy you back the years A mother pays far with her dreams and ears, For I am rich in nothing but In love. So let me give my thanks, so let me be Forever in your debt, who gave to me The breath of life and all the joy thereof. How many "little tired out boys" even though they were "boys" of twenty, or forty or sixty years have not wished that they could put into words the longing that Eugene Field expressed In his CHILD AND MOTHER 0 Mother-my-Love, If you'll give me your hand, And go where I -ask you to wander, 1 will lead you away to a beautiful land The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder. We'll walk In a sweet posie garden out there Where the moonlight and starlight are streaming And the flowers and birds are filling the air With fragrance and music of dreaming. dream-ing. There'll be no little tired out boy to undress, No questions or cares to perplex you: There'll be no little bruises or bumps to caress, Nor patches of stockings to vex you For I'll rock you away on a silver dew stream. And sing you asleep when you're weary, And no one shall know of our beautiful beau-tiful dream, But you and your own little dearie. And when I am tired I'll nestle my head In the bosom that's soothed me so often, - And the wide awake stars shall sing in my stead A song which our dreaming shall soften. So Mother-my-Love, let me take your dear hand, And away through the starlight we'll wander Away through the mist to the beautiful land The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder! And of all the "familiar poems" what one is better known and strikes a more responsive chord In the hearts of all of us than Mrs. Eliza-'beth Eliza-'beth Akers Allen's ROCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again iust for tonight! to-night! Mother, come back from the echoless shore. Take me again to yoir heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; ' Over mv slumbers your loving watch keep Bock me to sleep, mother rock me to sleep! Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I have grown weary of dust and decay de-cay Toil without recompense, tears all In vain Take them and give me my childhood again ! I have grown weary . of dust and decay de-cay 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. un-true. Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! Many a summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded our faces be-' be-' tween, Yet with strong yearning and passionate pas-sionate pain Long I tonight for your presence again. Comes 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 calm o'er my heavy lids creep Rook 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 lignt ; 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 hushed to your lullaby song ; Sing. then, und unto my soul It shall seem Womanhood's years bave been only a dream. Clasped tc your heart In a loving embrace, em-brace, With yur light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep Rock me to sleep, mother rock me tc sleep! T By ELMO SCOTT WATSON 11 1 IN SUNDAY, Mai 13, mil- Ollons of Americans will be wearing carnations as a symbol of love and remembrance re-membrance for their mothers moth-ers and sending loving ' greetings of one sort or t another to them. For the second Sunday In May of each year has been sot aside as Mothers' day and Tiibii ii ii despite an unfortunate element ele-ment of commercialism that has become be-come associated, with it, the idea hack of It has such a universal ap peal that few holidays or special days are more generally and sincerely observed ob-served by all Americans of all races, classes and creeds than Is Mother's day. The celebration of Mothers' day Is now twenty years old. It was originated origi-nated by Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia Phila-delphia in 1!)0S and given official recognition In 1914 when President Wood row Wilson Issued the first Mothers' day proclamation. The glory and beauty of mother love and the consequent love for mother with all the joy that it brings Is as old as the human race. There is an ancient Jewish saying that "God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers." Some of the greatest men of all ages, with the true humility of the great and with the breadth of vision which recognizes the true values of life have acknowledged their great deb" to the guiding force that made their-achievements their-achievements possible. Such an acknowledgement ac-knowledgement has never found a finer expression than that attributed to one of the greatest men of all time. For It was Abraham Lincoln who is said to have declared once: "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." And last year on Mothers' day a splendid tribute was paid that moth er when, to quote from a news dispatch dis-patch sent throughout the Unlteo States from Lincoln City. Ind. : "Mother's day was commemorated here today to one of the nation's greatest mothers Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Lin-coln. "Gathered at the grave of the moth er of the Emancipator, the executive committee of the Indiana Lincoln un Ion pledged itself to the task of build ing a national shrine In honor of the mother who, against all the hindrance? hin-drance? of a rude pioneer life, molded the character of Ahraham Lincoln '' "An aviator, zooming low over the grave and cabin site, dropped this message : To the Manes of Nancy Hanks Lincoln: Lin-coln: The men and women are here, beside your grave, Among the guarding trees, to make their vow "Your name shall never die"; and to their praise, We add our tribute from the sky. We are the artificers of the past, Whose handicraft has gained the praise of men. With stone and clay, with brush and pen. We wrought, to leave expressions ot the truth we found. But you you dared to take a living c'hiUl, a plastic Infant mind. To mold Into a soul of love, an Instrument Instru-ment divine. Your genius used an art that ours waE mean beside. To you, then, Master Artist, we send our word of praise. Through devious paths that masked the way. |