{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/mothers-recall",
 "title": "Mother’s Recall",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mary Weston Fordham",
 "poet_slug": "mary-weston-fordham",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Magnolia Leaves",
 "book_slug": "magnolia-leaves",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 20,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1897,
  "venue": "Magnolia Leaves (1897)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/magnolialeavespo00ford"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mary-weston-fordham_magnolia-leaves",
  "file": "magnolia-leaves.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/mary-weston-fordham-magnolia-leaves-full-text-1897-preface-by-booker-t-washington",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006775637"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come back to me, O ye, my children:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come back to the home as of yore;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As my longing eye peers through the vista of years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comes the heart-throbbing more and more.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I sit by the casement and listen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the fall of the soft, sobbing rain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "E’en the winds gently sigh as if loth to reply⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain, fond mother, in vain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Are ye gone for aye? Shall I no more hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ring and the din of glee?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have my nestlings flown and left me alone?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall their faces, I no more see?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I sit, and I wait while the days go by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the months merge slow into years;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the twilight deep and the mystic sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the hopes give place to fears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When the Christmas chimes with its holy rhymes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ring out o’er the frosty plain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then I sit, and sigh for the “Sweet bye and bye”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the answer comes, “Mother in vain.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Each one of us, children, have gone forth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fight out life’s battles alone;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the future must prove if your labor of love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has, like bread on the waters, been thrown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So the twilight comes⁠—and the fire burns low⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the day is ebbing fast⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon the merry chimes and the hallowed rhymes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will be numbered with the Past.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But with hopeful eyes I’ll scan the skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance, ere next Christmas-tide,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will my children come to their own dear home,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their place at mother’s side.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}