Rock Me to Sleep

by Florence Percy [Elizabeth Akers Allen]

Source of witness transcribed: The Emporia News (Emporia, Kansas)

Date of witness transcribed: 14 July 1860

Notes about this poem: "Rock Me to Sleep" was printed in at least 190 newspapers during the nineteenth century. It can be found using ID 325478 in this table of most widely-reprinted poems.

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• Backward, turn backward, oh Time, in your flight,
• Make me a child again, just for to-night!
• Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
• Take me again to your heart as of yore;
• Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
• Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
• Over my slumbers your loving watch keep—

• Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep!

• Backward, flow backward, oh tide of the years!
• I am so weary of toil and of tears—
• Toil without recompense—tears all in vain—
• Take them, and give me my childhood again!
• I have grown weary of dust and decay,
• Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away—
• Weary of sowing for others to reap,—

• Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep!

• Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
• Mother, oh mother, my heart calls for you!
• Many a summer the grass has grown green,
• Blossomed and faded, our faces between;
• Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain
• Long I to-night for your presence again;
• Come from the silence so long and so deep—

• Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep!

• Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
• No love like mother-love ever has shown;
• No other worship abides and endures
• Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours;
• None like a mother can charm away pain
• From the sick soul and the world-weary brain;
• Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep—

• Rock me to sleep; mother—rock me to sleep!

• Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
• Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
• Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
• Shading my faint eyes away from the light,
• For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
• Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore
• Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep—

• Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep!

• Mother, dear mother! the years have been long
• Since I last listened to your lullaby song;
• Since then, and unto my soul it shall seem
• Womanhood’s years have been only a dream;
• Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
• With your light lashes just sweeping my face
• Never hereafter to wake or to weep,
• Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep!

ROME, Italy, May, 1860