To The Best Of Women, My Mother

I would give it all up at a word from you, Mother o' mine!
But the strife has begun
That I dare not shun:
Yet my heart looks home to the rest it knew,
To the questionless trust and the welcome true;
And you call to me now as you used to do, Mother o' mine!
The wonderful years that we shared are flown, Mother o' mine!
The world has won
The heart of your son;
The child has died in the man full grown;
The path of my life I must tread alone,
And I dare not return when you call your own, Mother o' mine!
My heart in the chill of the world grows cold, Mother o' mine!
But lives may run
Ere your love be done,
And the child I remember you still enfold
In the passionate peace of your heart's warm hold -
For ever for you I'm the child of old, Mother o' mine!