The Light in Mother's Eyes by L.M. Montgomery

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.
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Bob's Stories by L.M. Montgomery

In October 1910, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "Bob's Stories" 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:

BOB’S STORIES
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

The sky was a windy tent when he

His stories told,

Shot all through with mellow hues:

And vagrant winds went lowing free

Over fields all wet with nightly dews,

And the West was gold.

Tired from work and play were we

When the day was done;

Hanging around the old back door

To hear the wonderful yarns that he

On those dusky, breezy eves of yore

Unwearied spun.

Bob was never stuck, not he,

For a story to tell.

He made them all out of his own small head,

Fairies and dragons and witches; we

Were almost too scared to go to bed

When the darkness fell.

Enchanted castles and knights galore

And pirates bold,

Marvelous ventures on land and sea,—

The wilder it all might be the more

We liked it and listened breathlessly,

Till the tale was told.

Books were nothing to him, we thought,

Not half such fun

As to sit around with wide-opened eyes,

Our little every-day world forgot,

And listen with awed, delicious surprise

To the yarns he spun.

Bob since then to other ears

Has stories told;

Over the world has flown his fame.

Men and women with laughter and tears

Read the books that bear his name

In letters of gold.

But I’m ready to wager that never he

Sweeter praise has won

Than we gave unstintedly years ago,

When, a barefooted, dusty fraternity,

We listened, wide-eyed, in the sunset glow

To the yarns he spun

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1910, October). Bob's Stories. The Farm Journal. 34(10): 466. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1910-10_34_10/page/466/mode/2up

Created October 13, 2022.
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Night in the Country by L.M. Montgomery

In October 1904, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "Night in the Country" 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:

NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY

In the city the night is gay,
Brighter, more feverish than the day;
Throngs unceasing pass through the glare,
Allured by pleasure or urged by care.

The noisy stir, the busy hum
Of unresting life is seldom dumb,
The benediction of midnight deep
Never may fall on the city’s sleep.

In the country the dusk, sweet night
Has the solemn calm of the infinite:
The dim, wide fields in silence lie
Under the arch of ebon sky.

The wind steals out of the quiet woods
To blow over dew-chrismed solitudes;
The hush of the hour is still and deep
In the pastures where the cattle sleep.

The kindly stars shine above the hills,
With balm and healing the night-time fills.
Here in the country one may rest
Like a child on its mother’s breast.

L. M. MONTGOMERY.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1904, October). Night in the Country. The Farm Journal. 28(10): 332. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1904-10_28_10/page/332/mode/2up

Created October 20, 2022.
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Some things come by lightning flashes.

"Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Blue Castle

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created October 19, 2022. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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In Wheaten Meadows by L.M. Montgomery

In July 1908, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "In Wheaten Meadows" 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:

IN WHEATEN MEADOWS
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

There are winds that riot o’er meadows still,
Over slopes of harvest gold,
From the fir-set rim of an orient hill,
With a vibrant melody athrill,
And a music all untold.

There are shadows and ripples, uncharted

and fleet,

Where the fretted tassels sway;
The call of the bluebird is lyric-sweet,
And the crimson poppies among the wheat
Look up to the mellow day.

Widely the ministrant meadows lie,
Lavish of rapture and rest;
White are the clouds in the slumberous sky,
And elfin the voices that wander by
The grass-hid field-lark’s nest.

Perhaps o’er the shadowy hills afar,
Unresting souls may throng,
And there may tumult and strife and jar
And ignoble discord and struggle mar
Earth’s full-voiced, matchless song.

But here, where the silken poppies burn,
And the air is pure and sweet,
We may hark to the rhythm for which we yearn,
And many an ancient lesson learn
In the meadows among the wheat.


Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1908, July). In Wheaten Meadows. The Farm Journal. 32(7): 274. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1908-07_32_7/page/n1/mode/2up

Created October 18, 2022.
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My Pictures by L.M. Montgomery

In May 1906, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "My Pictures" 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:

MY PICTURES

My pictures? Why, yes; I will show them with gladness—
Their number is small, but each one is a gem;
And in shadow or sunshine they charm away sadness,
The world is forgotten while gazing at them.

They were painted, each one, by the hand of a master
Whose skill is unquestioned, whose brush is most true,
Whose colors are brighter, whose canvasses vaster
Than any, my friend, that are cherished by you.

See! There is a valley that’s dappled with shadow
And threaded with sunshine, in bosk and in dell;
Or here, if you like, is a green stretch of meadow
A-twinkle with daisies where buttercups dwell,

Here’s a garden of blossom, an orchard bloom-whitened,
And others beyond that I need not to name,
All seen at a glance when the summer has brightened
The scenes that I view from my own window frame.

L. M. MONTGOMERY


Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1906, May). My Pictures. The Farm Journal. 30(5): 161. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1906-05_30_5/mode/2up

Created October 17, 2022.
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When Mother Tucked Us In by L.M. Montgomery

In January 1907, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "When Mother Tucked Us In" 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:

WHEN MOTHER TUCKED US IN
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

The sweetest memory of all,

Which time from us can never win,

Comes when the dusking shadows fall

And winds their nightly rune begin,—

The memory of those olden eves

When mother tucked us in.

Tired from our play, and glad to rest

When twilight brought its calm-eyed star,

And in its hush the yellow moon

Rose over purple hills afar

To shine on fields whose dewy peace

No dream of strife might mar.

And yet again we hear the croon

Of winds around the old low eaves

Of the brown house where we were born,

And in the murmuring poplar leaves,—

How sweet and subtle seems again

The spell remembrance weaves!

Upon us fell the gracious boon

Of childhood’s rest; we knew no care,

We only felt a gentle hand

Upon the tangles of our hair,

We only heard in that dim room

A mother’s tender prayer.

And now we walk the busy world

With all its maze of toil and sin,

But still a rescuing talisman

We bear our secret hearts within,—

The memory of those sacred hours

When mother tucked us in.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1907, January). When Mother Tucked Us In. The Farm Journal. 31(1): 18. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1907-01_31_1/page/18/mode/2up

Created October 16, 2022.
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Dawn by L.M. Montgomery

In April 1911, L.M. Montgomery published the poem "Dawn" 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:

DAWN
BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

There’s a silken fringe of light
On the ashen skirts of night,
And a fire-shot ruby rim
On the eastern hilltops dim,

And a rare,

Untainted air

Sweet from slopes all crystal dewed,
And many a clover solitude
Where night benedictions brood

At the dawn.

Hark! a burst of winged song
Floats the listening air along—
All the blithesome hush is stirred
By the rapture of a bird!

And the sky

Is clear and high

Over dells astar with flowers
Still begemmed with dewy showers,
Dreaming of the after hours

At the dawn.

Reference:
Montgomery, L.M. (1911, April). My Queen. The Farm Journal. 35(4): 244. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/sim_farm-journal_1911-04_35_4/page/244/mode/2up

Created October 15, 2022.
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