When Mother Combed My Hair

When Memory, with gentle hand,     Has led me to that foreign land     Of childhood days, I long to be     Again the boy on bended knee,     With head a-bow, and drowsy smile     Hid in a mother's lap the while,     With tender touch and kindly care,     She bends above and combs my hair.     Ere threats of Time, or ghosts of cares     Had paled it to the hue it wears,     Its tangled threads of amber light     Fell o'er a forehead, fair and white,     That only knew the light caress     Of loving hands, or sudden press     Of kisses that were sifted there     The times when mother combed my hair.     But its last gleams of gold have slipped     Away; and Sorrow's manuscript     Is fashioned of the snowy brow -     So lined and underscored now     That you, to see it, scarce would guess     It e'er had felt the fond caress     Of loving lips, or known the care     Of those dear hands that combed my hair.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     I am so tired!    Let me be     A moment at my mother's knee;     One moment - that I may forget     The trials waiting for me yet:     One moment free from every pain -     O!    Mother!    Comb my hair again!     And I will, oh, so humbly bow,     For I've a wife that combs it now.