While through the halls of memory in happy notes there rings
All the life-joy of the past in the song my mother sings.
I have listened to the dreamy notes of Chopin and of Liszt,
As they dripped and drooped about my heart and filled my eyes with mist;
I have wept strong tears of pathos 'neath the spell of Verdi's power,
As I heard the tenor voice of grief from out the donjon tower;
And Gounod's oratorios are full of notes sublime
That stir the heart with rapture thro' the sacred pulse of time;
But all the music of the past, and the wealth that memory brings,
Seem as nothing when I listen to the song my mother sings.