Mary D. Brine

“ As I lay welcome kisses on baby's wee brow!
A Grandmother, I? How the bright years have flown
Since I was a child scarce to maidenhood grown!
"And now in my arms, looking up in my eyes,
With orbs that are bluer than June's sunny skies,
Behold my own grandchild! Ah, verily, youth
'On double wings flies,' Grandpa says in good truth,
"As he looks in my face where no longer the rose
In my once dimpled cheeks in its loveliness grows,
And marks the white locks mingling faster each day
With the brown that old Time is fast stealing away. ”

“ What is that stealing thro' silence and gloom,
To fill with sweet melody Grandma's lone room?
What brings that fond smile, and dispels every trace
Of sadness and tears on the dear, aged face?
Only a lullaby, gentle and low,
Which a mother, while rocking her babe to and fro,
Croons over and over, for baby alone,
Till far into dreamland his spirit hath flown.
Only the lullaby all mothers love,
Listened to daily by angels above;
The dear, quaint old song which will ever seem best
To sing to our babies and lull them to rest—
The Lullaby. ”

“ The thoughts which go winging their way to the Past
Are swifter than Time, as you'll learn on some day
When you, like your Grandma, are wrinkled and grey."
On Grandma's thin cheek falls a kiss soft and sweet,
Ere the young mother hastens with step all so fleet,
To quiet her baby, whose startled grieved cry
Can only be hushed with the old lullaby—
Crooning it softly, and crooning it low,
Till again into slumber-land baby will go,
While Grandma still sits in the shadowy room
And smiles as the lullaby floats thro' the gloom. ”