Dear, old-time tunes of prayer and praise,
Heard first beside my mother's knee,
Your music on my spirit lays
A spell from which I should be free,
If lapse of time gave liberty.
I listen, and the crowded years
Fade, dream-like, from my life, and lo!
I find my eyelids wet with tears,—
So much I loved, so well I know
Those plaintive airs of long ago!
They tell me of my vanished youth,
Of faith in what so flawless seemed,
Before the painful quest of truth
Had proved how much I then esteemed
Was other than I fondly dreamed!
They make my childhood live again;
And life's fair dawn grows once more bright,
While listening to the sweet refrain,
Sung in the Sabbath's waning light,—
“Glory to Thee, my God, this night!”
My mother's voice, so pure and strong,
My father's flute of silvery tone,
The little household's strength of song,
The childish treble of my own,—
I hear them once more, but... alone!
Sweet obligato to some hymn
Whose words those vanished tones recall,
Float o'er me, when earth's scenes grow dim,
And life's last, lingering echoes fall,
Till silence settles over all!