‘Mother, O Mother’ we appreciate you

Today we celebrate mothers and the enduring love and guidance they provide.

It is the 101st formal commemoration of the day, which was first officially celebrated in 1914 here in the United States. Although the day is recognized in other countries and on different days, the significance of the day, like the women it honors, remains special.

Many people over the years have penned touching tributes to mothers. It is, perhaps, the biggest tribute of all that the themes common to them remain as rock solid and consistent as motherly love itself.

A poem written in 1882 by Elizabeth Akers Allen, called “Rock Me to Sleep,” is a recollection of, and longing for, the motherly love of childhood. It captures the very essence of motherhood and the living legacy mothers leave behind.

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!