KINDLING THE SABBATH LIGHT
FROM memory’s spring flows a vision to-night,
My mother is kindling and blessing the light;
The light of Queen Sabbath, the heavenly flame,
That one day in seven quells hunger and shame.
My mother is praying and screening her face,
Too bashful to gaze at the Sabbath light’s grace.
She murmurs devoutly, ‘Almighty, be blessed,
For sending Thy angel of joy and of rest.
‘And may as the candles of Sabbath divine
The eyes of my son in Thy Law ever shine.’
Of childhood, fair childhood, the years are long fled:
Youth’s candles are quenched, and my mother is dead.
And yet ev’ry Friday, when twilight arrives,
The face of my mother within me revives;
A prayer on her lips, ‘O Almighty, be blessed,
For sending us Sabbath, the angel of rest.’
And some hidden feeling I cannot control
A Sabbath light kindles deep, deep in my soul.
P. M. RASKIN.