EDITOR’S NOTE: In tribute to Mothers Day, which is Sunday, we are reprinting this poem by Ann H. McAdow. The original appeared in the Meeker Herald on May 22, 1897. It says just about all that can be said.
MOTHER’S DAY
We have Patrick’s and Arbor and Floral Day, Washington’s and many a national day;
But where in the record of days is there one with theme more worthy, and more deserving of praise,
which touches the home of the heart and is filled
with sublimer lays, than that of Mother’s Day? Unless it be that of the Sabbath-
God-given from commencement of days.
Talk of your heroes- their suffering and their pain;
Their deeds of self-denial on the battle-field or main.
They are grand!
We would not pluck one blossom from the
laurels they have won,
But a mother’s self-denial outshines them as the sun.
When the hero of the battle is slumbering in his tent,
And the preacher rests serenely after telling you “Repent,”
The mother is watching fondly with eyes that cannot sleep,
With love’s immortal yearning and a heart too sore to weep;
Watching a quick drawn breathing or bathing a burning brow-
Hope at times reviving-despair and anguish now.
It may be in cold and rags with only a crust of bread,
With rags and straw for a pallet and no pillow for her head,
In some dark and lowly hovel where the grandees never tread,
But bask midst ease and splendor-no thought for the poor unfed.
But love is just the same in hut or in palace hall,
Only the one has wealth- to the other her child is all.
Of many a hero and martyr the gages of history tell,
They are crowned with wreaths of glory, and this is right and well,
But only the Book of Life, where recording angels write,
Can tell of heroic mothers’ whose deeds never come to light
Till the tempest shall sound and awaken the dead from out of their grave, and the
cry shall be heard- “Come forth, all ye that are under the waves!” Then shall the
proud and the haughty, the oppressor and the oppressed, the rich and the poor
on one footing; the happy and the distressed, will then hear once and forever
“Depart from me ye accursed, or come unto me and be blessed.”
~ Anna H. McAdow
Reprinted from
The Meeker Herald
Dated May 22, 1897
