Rock Me To Sleep
Backward, turn backward, 0 time in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smoothe 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, 0 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, dear 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 to-night for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep,-
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!
NOTE.--This piece of music was first sung by Moses Hull at a time that he was confined to his house by illness. He sang it to the words "ROCK ME TO SLEEP MOTHER." After his recovery he hummed the air for those who were compiling the music for the Spiritual Harp, and. they wrote the music out, changing it in places and printed it for the words of "Ring the Bell Softly". Moses' eldest daughter was then a little girl, but she learned the tune from hearing him sing it, and sang it with him many times. It is here rendered just as he composed it. Three stanzas of the poem are printed. It was very plaintive, and he sang it often through his whole life.