Come back to me, O ye, my children;
Come back to the home as of yore;
As my longing eye peers through the vista of years,
Comes the heart-throbbing more and more.
I sit by the casement and listen
To the fall of the soft, sobbing rain,
E'en the winds gently sigh as if loth to reply-
In vain, fond mother, in vain.

Are ye gone for aye? Shall I no more hear
The ring and the din of glee?
Have my nestlings flown and left me alone?
Shall their faces, I no more see?
I sit, and I wait while the days go by,
And the months merge slow into years;
Till the twilight deep and the mystic sleep,
And the hopes give place to fears.

When the Christmas chimes with its holy rhymes
Ring out o'er the frosty plain,
Then I sit, and sigh for the 'Sweet bye and bye'-
But the answer comes, 'Mother in vain.'
Each one of us, children, have gone forth
To fight out life's battles alone;
And the future must prove if your labor of love,
Has, like bread on the waters, been thrown.

So the twilight comes-and the fire burns low-
And the day is ebbing fast-
Soon the merry chimes and the hallowed rhymes
Will be numbered with the Past.
But with hopeful eyes I'll scan the skies,
Perchance, ere next Christmas-tide,
Will my children come to their own dear home,
And their place at mother's side.