"'Bring me that innocent brow, my boy!
Bring me that shadowless eye!
Bring me the tone of tender joy
That breathes in thy last good-bye!'"
His mother ever remained in his memory a hallowed image of authority and benignity, a presence associated with everything dear and holy. In an hour of effusion, near the end of his own life, he said, "When I saw her great dark eyes fixed on me, beaming with satisfied affection, and listened to words of approval from her lips, O it was more to me than all the public plaudits in the world! My God, what a joy it would be to me now to kneel at her feet and worship her! And they say there are such meetings hereafter. I know not, I know not. I hope it is so." He had her portrait over the foot of his bed, that her face, as in his childhood, might be the last sight he saw ere falling asleep, and the first to greet him when he awoke. And among the papers left at his death the following lines were found in his handwriting, either composed by him or copied by him from some unnamed source:
"MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.
"Here is my mother's grave. Dear hallowed spot,
The flight of these long years has changed thee not,
Though all things else have changed; e'en this sad heart,
In all, save thoughts of thee, which will not start,