In January 1909, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "The Light in Mother's Eyes" about her mother Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery in The Farm Journal, a journal devoted to the farm, orchard, garden, poultry and household economy. The journal's motto was "Practical not Fancy Farming."
Here is a digitized image of the poem scanned from microfilm available at Archive.org:
Here is the full text of the poem:
THE LIGHT IN MOTHER’S EYES
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY
Dear beacon of my childhood’s day,
The lodestar of my youth,
A mingled glow of tenderest love
And firm, unswerving truth,
I’ve wandered far o'er east and west,
’Neath many stranger skies,
But ne’er I’ve seen a fairer light
Than that in mother’s eyes.
In childhood when I crept to lay
My tired head on her knee,
How gently shone the mother-love
In those dear eyes on me;
And when in youth my eager feet
Roamed from her side afar,
Where’er I went that light divine
Was aye my guiding star.
In hours when all life’s sweetest buds
Burst into dewy bloom,
In hours when cherished hopes lay dead
In sorrow and in gloom;
In evening’s hush, or morning’s glow,
Or in the solemn night,
Those mother eyes still shed on me
Their calm, unchanging light.
Long since the patient hands I loved
Were folded in the clay,
And long have seemed the lonely years
Since mother went away;
But still I know she waits for me
In fields of Paradise,
And I shall reach them yet, led by
The light in mother’s eyes.
Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1909, January). The Light in Mother's Eyes. The Farm Journal. 33(1): 35. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1909-01_33_1/page/34/mode/2up
Created October 22, 2022.
© worldofanneshirley.com
