Guy Wetmore Carryl

“ But I fear not these enchantments; where the trumpet-creepers twine,
Though the air be filled with music, though the air be sweet as wine,
These my children stay not—may not. I am theirs, and they are mine. ”

“ Let them go their ways unquestioned, let them come, unquestioned still,
I shall wait them, I shall welcome, come they when or whence they will;
Am I not the Haven-Mother? ’T is a mother’s part to bide,
To be ready, to be tender, when the turning of the tide
Brings the rovers homeward, weary of their strivings with the sea,
To the sweet surcease that waits them in the port where they would be.
Let them roam to north or southward—wheresoe’er their ways are cast,
To my bosom backward turning when their journeying is past,
They shall gleam within the offing, and be mine again at last! ”