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.