Read "A Mother's Reverie" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The shadows drop down o'er the fields tinged with brown, / Where the snow-drifts were gleaming of late, / And the day shuts her eyes, while th' red western skies / Make ready the chambers of state. / How still the house seems! while round about gleams / Th' last mellow rays of th' sun. / There's no step on the stair -- no voice anywhere, / Crying, "Mother, the last task is done!"
Can it be I'm alone? can it be there are none / Left of eight, who have called me that name? / Four boys and four girls, with their tresses and curls, / Four brave boys, four fair girls, that came / To my home one by one, like lost rays from the sun, / And where are they all now? I pray; / Like birds from the nest, the babes on my breast / Took wing, and have fluttered away.