Leaving her sports, in pensive tone,
’Twas thus a fair young mourner said,
“How sad we are now we’re alone,—
I wish my mother were not dead!
“I can remember she was fair;
And how she kindly looked and smiled,
When she would fondly stroke my hair,
And call me her beloved child.
“Before my mother went away,
You never sighed as now you do;
You used to join us at our play,
And be our merriest playmate too.
“Father, I can remember when
I first observed her sunken eye,
And her pale, hollow cheek; and then
I told my brother she would die!
“And the next morn they did not speak,
But led us to her silent bed;
They bade us kiss her icy cheek,
And told us she indeed was dead!
“Oh, then I thought how she was kind,
My own beloved and gentle mother!
And calling all I knew to mind,
I thought there ne’er was such another!
“Poor little Charles, and I! that day
We sate within our silent room;
But we could neither read nor play,—
The very walls seemed full of gloom.
“I wish my mother had not died,
We never have been glad since then!
They say, and is it true,” she cried,
“That she can never come again?”
The father checked his tears, and thus
He spake, “My child, they do not err,
Who say she cannot come to us;
But you and I may go to her.
“Remember your dear mother still,
And the pure precepts she has given;
Like her, be humble, free from ill,
And you shall see her face in heaven!”