A Mother’s Message.
Her visit was ended and back to her home
Far away my dear mother was going;
But now that the hour for parting was come
With sorrow her heart was o’erflowing.
Oh pale grew her cheeks and fast fell her tears,
Her faltering counsels delaying,
Then low fell these words on my listening ears,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”
Not a word of the devil, his plans and his wiles,
His lies and his love of deceiving,
Not a word of the world with its follies and smiles
She said when her son she was leaving.
I know on my journey she wished me all bliss,
I know that for me she was praying,
But all that I heard her lips utter was this,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”
Like the sea as it plays on a dangerous rock
Is the spirit that now is in motion,
Around me are men who at Heaven make mock,
And I’m but a drop in the ocean.
My feet are oft hasting the broad path along
But while on the precipice straying
I am saved by the message so tender, so strong,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”
‘Sin not’—in the skies though this sentence I read,
In letters of fire engraven,
Though roared the loud thunder in accents of dread,
‘Transgress not the laws of high Heaven,’
Though slowed the swift lightning to one solid flame,
My feet from ungodliness staying,
Far stronger the words from my mother which came,
“You know what my heart, dear, is saying.”