Rock Me To Sleep by Elizabeth Akers Allen. Schubert - Rosamunde (excerpt).

Backward,turn backward,O Time,in your flight

Make me a child again just for tonight!

Mother,come back from the echoless shore,

Take me again to your heart as of yore

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep

Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!

Backward,flow backward,O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense,tears all in vain

Take them,and give me my childhood again

I have grown weary of dust and decay

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away

Weary of sowing for others to reap

Rock me to sleep,mother rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow,the base,the untrue

Mother,O mother,my heart calls for you!

Many a summer the grass has grown green

Blossomed and faded,our faces between

Yet,with strong yearning and passionate pain

Long I tonight for your presence again

Come from the silence so long and so deep

Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair,just lighted with gold

Fall on your shoulders again as of old

Let it drop over my forehead tonight

Shading my faint eyes away from the light

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Happly will throng the sweet visions of yore

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace

With your light lashes just sweeping my face

Never hereafter to wake or to weep—

Rock me to sleep, mother– rock me to sleep!