TO MY MOTHER

At evening when the twilight curtains fall,

Before the lamps are lit within my room,

My memories hang bright upon the gloom,

Like ancient frescoes painted on the wall.

And I can hear the call of birds and bells

And shadowy sound of waves, and wind through leaves

And wind that rustles through the burnished sheaves,

And far off voices whispering farewells.

I dream again the joy I used to know

While straying by the sea that hardly sighed

A sorrow in my singing, as the tide

Crept up to clasp me, smiled, and let me go.

And I remember all the glad lost hours,

The racing of brown rabbits on the hill,

The winds that prowled around the lonely mill,

Laburnum laughter, music of the flowers.

The berries plucked with loitering delight,

Staining the dusk with purple, till the thought

Of starry little ghosts behind us caught

Our hearts and made us fearful of the night.

The London evenings huddled in the rain

Whose misty prisms shone with lamplight pale,

Making our hearts seem sinister and frail,

Fainting our thoughts with mystery and pain.

I have a world of memories to dream,

To touch with loving fingers as a sigh

Revives a little flame and lets it die.

Ah, were the days as lovely as they seem

Now that they look so peaceful lying dead?

And is it all the hope of Joy we have,

The broken trophies of the things she gave

And took away to give us dreams instead?

The things we love and lose before we find

The way to love them well enough and keep,

That now are woven on the looms of sleep

That now are only music of the wind.