The music of life's great marches
Sounded for him in vain;
The voices of human duty
Smote on his ear like pain.
In vain over island and water
The curtains of sunset swung;
In vain on the beautiful mountains
The pictures of God were hung.
The wretched years crept onward,
Each sadder than the last;
All the bloom of life fell from him,
All the freshness and greenness passed.
But deep in his heart forever
And unprofaned he kept
The love of his saintly Mother,
Who in the grave-yard slept.
His house had no pleasant pictures;
Its comfortless walls were bare;
But the riches of earth and ocean
Could not purchase his Mother's Chair,—
The old chair, quaintly carven,
With oaken arms outspread,
Whereby, in the long gone twilights,
His childish prayers were said.
For thence, in his lone night-watches,
By moon or starlight dim,
A face full of love and pity
And tenderness looked on him.
And oft, as the grieving presence
Sat in his mother's chair,
The groan of his self-upbraiding
Grew into wordless prayer.
At last, in the moonless midnight,
The summoning angel came,
Severe in his pity, touching
The house with fingers of flame.
The red light flashed from its windows
And flared from its sinking roof;
And baffled and awed before it,
The villagers stood aloof.
They shrank from the falling rafters,
They turned from the furnace-glare;
But its tenant cried, "God help me!
I must save my mother's chair."