Mother

“ I have seen a young and beautiful mother, herself like a brilliant and graceful flower. Nothing could divide her from her infant. It was to her as a twin-soul. She had loved society, for there she had been as an idol. But what was the fleeting delight of adulation, to the deep love that took possession of her whole being? ”

“ How holy, how powerful is the influence of a mother! The father may do much, but the mother can do more toward the formation of the mind, and the habits of early childhood. Exercising a power, silent, yet refreshing as the dews of heaven, her least word, her lightest look, sinks deep into the hearts of her children, and moulds them to her will. How many men have owed all that has made them great to the early teachings of a mother’s love! ”

“ Of all the rhymes of all the climes
Of where and when and how,
We best and most can boost and boast
The Golden Age of NOW!
TO THE MOTHER
The mother-hands no further toil may know;
The mother-eyes smile not on you and me;
The mother-heart is stilled, alas!—But O
The mother-love abides eternally. ”

“ The trembling hand of the gray-haired mother fluttered down like a blessing on the burning brow of her eldest-born—the son who had always been a blessing to her from the hour when his baby lips stirred the mother-love into life within her breast until now, when the hand that had smoothed her widowed path so gently, lay still and wasted on the counterpane, never to take up life's burden again. ”

“ And after all, what mother, of them all, knows her daughter, enveloped as she is in a double veil? For between the old heart and the young lies the mist of the years; and what eye can pierce aright the diffracting medium of maternal love? ”

“ Through your mother-love, my dear, keep him steady, keep him near
To the soul he loves—your soul—whate'er the cost!
You're not alone in heartaches or in doubts;
All mothers feel this burden newly coined;
Then call your trembling pride to your colors—to your side—
"Be a sport!" and make him glad that he has joined!
Little mother, little mother, with the shadows in your eyes
And the icy hand of Fear about your heart,
There is this that you can do: "Play the game"; there honor lies. ”

“ The day of baby's mastership To raise himself upright, An era marks along the way, By mother-love made light. Her mother-voice lures on his step, Her care protects from harm; While deeper into her heart he glides, With every opening charm. ”

“ Lying in her arms, the babe is reading the spirit of the mother in her face as she tells him the love stories that only a mother can. The little spirit absorbs from her look, her smile, her frown, before the young brain can take in a word. ”

“ In love supremely bless'd,
An infant, fair and full of glee,
Caressing and caress'd,
While siren Hope, with gladness wild,
And eye cerulean blue,
Bent sweetly down to kiss the child,
And bless the mother too. ”

“ Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast; O fair white mother, in days long past Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free. O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain. ”

“ Have you never seen the sweetest ties existing between father and daughter, or brother and younger sister, when the wife has been removed by death, or, through some fatal fault, is no mother to her child? What love, what devotion, what watchful care, what sympathy, what strength of attachment! The little unmothered daughter calls out all the motherhood in the great, brawny man, and they walk hand in hand, blest with a great content. ”

“ Yet grown by you, and feeding on Your strength as mother, you are gone When I return from living, trace My steps to see how I began, And deeply search your mother face To know your inner self, the place For which you bore me, sent me forth To wander, south or east or north. ”

“ The Mother at Home.—By the quiet fireside at home, the true mother, in the midst of her children, is sowing as in the vases of the earth, the seeds of plants that shall some time give to Heaven the fragrance of their blossoms, and whose fruit shall be to us a rosary of angelic deeds, the noblest offering that she can make through the ever ascending and expanding souls of her children to her Maker. ”

“ A mother had an only child, a little girl, fair as a lily, whose great blue eyes wandered from her mother to heaven and back from heaven to her mother, only to fix themselves on heaven at last. How proud and happy was this loving mother when every one praised the beauty of her child! ”

“ Every day the good doctor came to see the mother and the little baby, and every day the mother grew stronger; and the greatest delight of both parents was to look at their new child, and softly kiss its tender cheek, and feel the velvet touch of its precious little hands. ”

“ And amidst them all, the mother Earth Sits with the children of her birth; She tendeth them all, as a mother hen Her little ones round her, twelve or ten: Oft she sitteth, with hands on knee, Idle with love for her family. ”

“ Her Love.—Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age. ”

“ And when the artful mother has led me far from the sacred spot where lay all there was in this world to her, how triumphantly she has lifted herself on her unharmed wings and, to my utter astonishment, sailed away. ”

“ The youth, from all sorrow, temptation and care, Seeks the warm mother heart and finds comfort there; The woman, whose virtues are whispered above, Will daily thank God for the dear “mother love;” The man, be he lover, or husband, or brother, Will ever hold sacred the love of his mother. ”

“ How beautiful, then, in its adaptation to the situation in which she is placed, and the duties she has to perform, is that instinct of maternal love, which, from its intensity and depth, its all-pervading and inextinguishable vitality, so lives and breathes through every act, thought, word, and look of the fond mother, that sooner would her infant doubt its own existence, than question that of her untiring love! ”

“ When I think of my mother, I must necessarily think of the whole sex affectionately epitomised into my mother. The mother is the mother, not merely because she has nursed me at her bosom, fed me with her hand and fondled me with her caresses, but also—and more so— because she is the symbol of all that is pure, all that is chaste, all that is tender, all that is affectionate, all that is patient, all that is persevering, all that is forbearing, all that is long-suffering, all that is self-denying and—what not? ”

“ Picture a sleeping babe and its mother for sale at auction! To you, gentle mothers of darling babes, I am now addressing my simple words. If the heart of man should be cast of iron, or carved out of granite, a loving mother’s heart is soft, like pure melted wax, and always susceptible to every impression of goodness and of compassion. She alone can tell how great is the pain to see her darling babe suffer. She alone can understand the sufferings of other unfortunate mothers. ”

“ Strange but beautiful is the strength of maternal affection. This object to all others so hideous—that for earth to hide his deformity, for death to close upon his afflictions, seems a boon to be prayed for, a mercy to be acknowledged with thankfulness—in the eyes of his mother is one of hope and of interest as great as the most perfect. ”

“ All ye who are mothers, I appeal to you, for one moment to put yourselves in the place of thousands of such mothers, in whose hearts the same mother’s love burns as in yours, and then measure the depth of their agony. ”

“ Oh, what love like a mother's! What mother like my own dear, sainted mother? In all the ordeal of life thy calm and peaceful spirit has never known a ruffle. Thy love has never once failed. Thy sorely tried patience never was exhausted. ”

“ Hitherto the older of the two mothers, the mother of many children, had remained silent with that peculiar expression of patience and sweetness which lies like a halo on the faces of good women who have brought many children into the world. ”

“ Always I hurry faster when my happy brave little fellow cries 'Wait, mother,' for the sweet feel of that dragging at my mother-skirt—
More often my Child is the little girl six years old of the shy eyes and the sun-kissed hair and the firm child-mouth, full of high temper and strong will. All over her is need and demand of her mother to guard and adore and cherish her every moment of her life. ”

“ Carew gazed down on this little head—the mother-look, which admits of nothing false, and which when once seen on a woman's face, whether she be mother in fact or mother only in heart—idealizes her in the mind for ever. ”

“ do they know when we are well and happy? do they know when we recall their memories with the fondest love? In the silent hour of evening the shade of my mother hovers around me; when seated in the midst of my children, I see them assembled near me, as they used to assemble near her; and then I raise my anxious eyes to heaven, and wish she could look down upon us, and witness how I fulfil the promise I made to her in her last moments, to be a mother to her children. ”

“ Then, with a natural and remorseful rush of love for one who had been as tender towards her as a mother since that mother commended her to his care, she put her arms around him and whispered, "I am not afraid, father. Mother and heaven may be nearer than we think." ”

“ It is Mother, and again Mother who is called upon, if we need help, if we need support. The honour of motherhood lies in this, in the calling of her name in deep, sorrowful hours. Why do we not call upon our father—why just our mother? Because we feel from childhood, instinctively that Mother, means a world of love and devotion. ”

“ A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future, but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. ”

“ Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father—Mr Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother languishes. ”

“ You know how a good mother watches at the sick-bed the livelong night, passing back and forth through the dark rooms, listening to every breathing, answering every sigh with a comforting word, or a cool drink, or a soft caress. Only the next world will reveal to us the loveliness of such devoted souls; here we catch but a glimpse and an echo of it. {104} The accents, the tones of the voice, the very silence, the manners, the ways of a good mother diffuse what Scripture calls the fragrance of ointments around her household. ”

“ THE HISTORY OF MY MOTHER.
"I feel an oppression of the heart when I approach the facts I am now to record. The mother is to the man the personification of Providence; is the living earth to which the heart clings as roots to the soil. All who have written of their family, have spoken with tenderness of their mother. ”

“ If thou art happy—and may God ever grant it—this will be no longer thy home; but should misfortune visit thee, a mother is still a mother, and her arms ever open for her children. Like thee, I quitted my mother's side to follow a husband. Thy children will leave thee in their turn. When the birds are grown, the maternal nest can not hold them. ”

“ Mother, there’s nothing more to eat —
Why don’t you go out on the street?
Always you sit and cry and cry;
Here at my play I wonder why.
Mother, when you dress up at night,
Red are your cheeks, your eyes are bright ”

“ Mother of many children alien born,
⁠Whom she has gathered into her kind arms,—
Safe-guarding most the weakest, most forlorn,—
⁠The mother's patience she has learned to know,
Which passes trifles by with smiling scorn—
⁠The mother's hopefulness, to anger slow. ”

“ Here is the fashionable mother with her pretty daughters who evince a charming delight in everything that happens; the fussy mama who is sure that her baggage has not come ashore, or that the officers of the custom-house are in league against her; children separated from parents or nurses, shrieking wildly in their terror, while others, more venturesome and curious, are in every one’s way. ”

“ The mother of the lady, who formerly moved in a higher sphere than she does at present, never maintained a very formidable character. This daughter is the fruit of her indiscriminate amours, and though I am perfectly satisfied she has not yet been blown upon by the breath of a mortal, her education has been such as to prepare her to follow the venerable example of her mother. ”

“ Half fearing lest the High and Holy One,
⁠Should deem her earth-born wayward thought too bold.
When, lo! she sees among the seraph bands
⁠Her angel child in spotless garment drest,
Who calls her “Mother,” stretching out his hands,
⁠And nestling like a bird upon her breast. ”

“ It gives music to the voice of fame, when it echoes on a mother's ear; sweetness to the bridal wreath, when a mother binds it on a daughter's brow; honor to the dignity, a mother showed us how to wear; and value to the wealth, a mother taught us how to use. ”

“ A great great Mother—so great that all this big world is Her baby. God is playing with Her world, and She shuts Her eyes. Then, all our lives long, baby darling, we try to catch the Great Mother peeping. ”

“ But more than all, her mother has grown so tender to her, and so grateful, following her constantly about the room with her eyes, that the girl says she feels in a paradise of which her mother is the tutelar divinity, raying out bliss as she lies in bed! ”