To My Mother - A poem by Charles W. Noell

To My Mother.

Dear mother, how often, when sitting alone,
My thoughts will revert to the days that are gone.
A host of fond memories scarce wait for my call,
How gladly I welcome and cherish them all;
A place for a lodgment they have found in my heart,
And there will I keep them, they shall not depart,
But while time 'tis given, and reason shall last,
I'll water them of ten with tears for the past.

Scarce thought I when bidding adieu to my home,
In a far distant country, 'midst strangers to roam,
That I bade it farewell, never more to enjoy
The scenes so familiar to me when a boy.
Tho' that home brought not riches, the All-seeing eye
Knows it brought to me treasures which wealth cannot
Nor diamond, nor ruby, nor sapphire, nor gold [buy;
Are naught when compared with the treasures I hold.

Though the home of the stranger, still memory clings
To the home of my childhood, what pleasures it brings!
And withal, yet the sadness, to think that no more
A welcoine is waiting for me at that door.
How oft when returned from the labors of morn
In the ripening wheat, or the green growing corn,
I have stood by the well, O the pleasures I've found
In a drink from the bucket, the "old iron bound!"

But need I rccall all these memories here?
They can but bring sadness to you, Mother dear;
While 'tis gladness instead I would fain give to you;
So I'll hope for the best in the home that is new.
The home of my childhood I cannot forget,
And oft times my thoughts will revert to it yet;
But this thought will cheer me, wherever I roam,
I know that a welcome awaits me at home.

^__Charles W. Noell.

Poets and Poetry of Kansas
Edited by Thomas W. Herringshaw
(Chicago: American Publishers' Association. 1894)
Page 140