Classic Poem

The heart of home is still:
The house stands on the street,
Nor tells the passers-by
Its heart has ceased to beat.

And yet within how changed!
The rooms look as of old:
Across the carpets fair
The sunlight pours its gold.

The tables and the books,
The stairways and the hall,
Seem as before: still hang
The pictures on the wall.

The little ones, too young
To know what it may mean,
Their wondering questions ask,
With tears and smiles between.

The body of the home
Stands still upon the street;
But yet how changed within, —
Its heart has ceased to beat!

The mother was the heart, —
The mother and the wife:
Her smile was all its light,
Her movement all its life.

Now that she smiles no more,
And does not lift her head,
The house may still remain,
But, oh, the home is dead!

The lonely husband broods
Upon the years gone by, —
The kindness on her lips,
The love-light in her eye.

And then he looks before,
And shrinks to meet the days,
When, sitting all alone,
He'll miss her quiet ways.

His heart is sore to think
That time may e'en erase
From her own children's hearts
The memory of her face.

For now their wondering looks
Beseech the reason why
Their mother lies so still,
And why those round her cry.

O house upon the street,
What comfort can be said
To him who weeps within?
The heart of home is dead!

But this: You must be brave
The little ones to bless
With all your manhood's strength,
And all her tenderness.

'Tis double duty now:
If she could speak, she'd say,
" Let not the ones we loved —
Now I have gone away —

" Be poor in love or care:
Be mother in my place;
And let them not forget
Their absent mother's face.

" Some day, — who knows! — perchance,
Where friends can ne'er forget,
They'll clasp me in their arms,
And call me mother yet. "