Turning with a look of triumph But the mother's woes were ended—– ROCK ME TO SLEEP. Backward, turn backward, O Time! in your flight; Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from that 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 sewing for others to reap;Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! Tired of the hollow, the false, 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 to-night for your presence again. Come from the silence so long and so deep;Rock me to sleep, mother,―rock me to sleep! Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! MY MOTHER'S SONG. BYRON W. KING. 'Mid the far-off hills, by a lowly cot, Years, years have gone, but I hear it still, I know as she sings it, day after day, Her locks are fast turning to silvery gray; The form is more bending, the hand is more weak, And trembling and low are the tones that speak; She is failing fast, thro' suffering long, But never more sweet was my Mother's song. I know that a message must some day come But thro' all years my heart shall beat; LARIAT BILL-THE ENGINEER'S STORY. PUCK. "Well, stranger, 'twas somewhere in 'sixty-nine, An' we pulled out of Murder a little late, And a mile a minute were 'bout our gait. "My fireman's name were Lariat Bill, A quiet man with an easy way, Who could rope a steer with a cow-boy's skill, Which he'd learned in Texas, I've heard him say; The coil were strong as tempered steel, An' it went like a bolt from cross-bow flung, An' arter Bill changed from saddle to wheel, Just over his head in the cab it hung. "Well, as I were sayin', we fairly flew As we struck the curve at Buffalo Spring, An' I give her full steam an' put her through, An' the engine rocked like a livin' thing; When all of a sudden I got a scare For thar on the track were a little child! An' right in the path of the engine there, She held out her little hands and smiled! “I jerked the lever and whistled for brakes, He paused. There were tears in his honest eycs; "I know the rest of the tale," he cries: "He snatched the child from the jaws of death! 'Twas the deed of a hero-from heroes bredWhose praises the very angels sing!" The engineer shook his grizzled head, And growled: "He didn't do no sich thing." "He aimed for the stump of a big pine-tree, An' the lariat caught with a double hitch, An' in less'n a second the train an' we Were yanked off the track an' inter the ditch! 'Twere an awful smash, an' it laid me out, I ain't forgot it an' never shall; 'Were the passengers hurt?' Lemme see-aboutYes, it killed about forty—but saved the gal!” THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. BY JULIA MILLS DUNN. The summer skies bend soft and blue, She with a milk-pail on her arm, And hears down the lane the slow, dull tread Of the drove of cows that are homeward going. "Bessie," he said; at the sound she turned, Her blue eyes full of childish wonder; "My mother is feeble, and lame, and old— I need your presence ever near me; Queen of my household, to guide and cheer me?” |