Mother's Day

Dear saintly mother, she is growing old,
The saddest thought in all of life's refrain,
That thrills me with a loneliness untold,
For she will not be young and strong again.

The silver threads have come, and come to stay
Among the locks of hair that once shone bright.
The years have dimmed their hue, and left the grey,
As fades the golden day toward the night.

And Father Time has touched that brow today
With lines that tell the story of a life,
A life not strewn with roses all the way
But with its ample share of care and strife.

That sacred head that time is bending low,
Just as earth's fairest flower must droop and fade
And sheds its petals, where the young may grow
The lovelier where her wasted form is laid.

Those hands that one day cared so well for me,
When in a strange cold world I helpless lay,
Are not so certain as they used to be,
But growing slowly frailer day by day.

And when we walk together, she and I,
About the street or in the garden green,
Her step is not so light as days gone by,
And slower now than once it may have been.

Thus slowly, calmly, silently as eve
Steals down, to bring an end to every day,
The mantle of the years in hoary weave
Comes showering down, and fades the glow away.

It matters not how fair the day has been,
How perfect is the fragrant rose in bloom,
The loveliness must wither and decay,
The fairest day must come to evening gloom.

It matters not how beautiful the face,
How radiant the glow of youth and joy,
The touch of time must alter every grace,
And blight and change and gradually destroy.

For time is on the wing and life is brief,
We do not miss the seasons as they go,
Until the gentle falling of a leaf
Reminds us of a winter's frost and snow.

Perhaps some little kindness we can show,
May add another day to mother's years,
To make the day seem brighter here below,
Some little token spare her many tears.

If we have any flowers we would give,
In token of the love we proudly bear
For her, who cannot always with us live,
Give her them now while they are fresh and rare.

When they have laid her silently away,
And God has claimed the spirit He has given,
She will not need the flowers of earth's decay,
She'll have the fairer flowers that bloom in heaven.