Leaving her sports, in pensive tone,
'Twas thus a fair young mourner said,
" How sad we are now we're alone, —
I wish my mother were not dead!

" I can remember she was fair;
And how she kindly looked and smiled,
When she would fondly stroke my hair,
And call me her beloved child.

" Before my mother went away,
You never sighed as now you do;
You used to join us at our play,
And be our merriest playmate too

" Father, I can remember when
I first observed her sunken eye,
And her pale, hollow cheek; and then
I told my brother she would die!

" And the next morn they did not speak,
But led us to her silent bed;
They bade us kiss her icy cheek,
And told us she indeed was dead!

" Oh, then I thought how she was kind,
My own beloved and gentle mother!
And calling all I knew to mind,
I thought there ne'er was such another!

" Poor little Charles, and I! that day
We sate within our silent room;
But we could neither read nor play, —
They very walls seemed full of gloom.

" I wish my mother had not died,
We never have been glad since then!
They say, and is it true, " she cried,
" That she can never come again? "

The father checked his tears, and thus
He spake, " My child, they do not err,
Who say she cannot come to us;
But you and I may go to her.

" Remember your dear mother still,
And the pure precepts she has given,
Like her, be humble, free from ill,
And you shall see her face in heaven! "