Mother Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

If I should rise amidst the assembled dead,
Calling for thee, whose fond hands often led
Me in young years, in that far unknown place
To help me there, and could not find thy face !

If thou wouldst find that mother who was free
To call thee hers, as I have need of thee;
Or I stood lost, all fear and dread amaze,
On death's great plains and solitary ways!

Ah, no, ah, no, less child than mother thou!
Have I not seen those gentle eyes, that brow,
Bent o'er me hours less grievous than to-day,
When on some childhood's bed I fevered lay ?

Couldst thou behold me sad and full of tears
For those I left, nor chide my lonesome fears
With the old smile on thy remembered face,
Holding me, wearied so from life's hard race ?

Safe in this thought, I give myself to sleep—
Sleep that may wake from slumber yet more deep,
So when I rise from all death's dread alarms,
I see thy face and find my mother's arms.