"The Childless Mother's Lullaby"

The Childless Mother's Lullaby

Oh, many’s the time in the evening

        When the light has fled over the sea,

That I dream alone in the gloaming

        Of the joys that are not for me;

And oft in my sorrowful bosom

        Swells up the mother-love flame,

And I clasp with arms that are trembling

        My child that never came;

Singing—“Hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Nestle thee deeper in mother’s breast,

Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Tenderest angels will guard thy rest.”

The candles far down in the city

        Shine out thro’ the purplish gray,

And the stars come out in the heavens

        And glimmer across the bay;

The murmuring waves steal homeward

        From the ocean’s larger blue,

As I dream alone in the gloaming

        Of the child that I never knew;

Singing—“Hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Nestle thee deeper in mother’s breast,

Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Tenderest angels will guard thy rest.”

Oh, the little warm cheek in my bosom,

        Oh, the little wet lips at the breast,

Oh, the clinging wee satiny fingers

        To my longing lips that are pressed!

There was never a song that was sweeter,

        Tho’ its singer be laurelled with fame,

Than the song that I sing in the gloaming

        To the child that never came: 

“Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Nestle thee deeper in mother’s breast,

Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Tenderest angels will guard thy rest.” 

The hours swim on to the midnight, 

        The moon looks over the hill,

And the u-lu-lu of the night-owl

        Sinks mournfully and shrill;

The solitude aches with rapture,

        And my heart with the mother-love flame,

As I sing alone in the gloaming

        To the child that never came:

“Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Nestle thee deeper in mother’s breast,

Oh, hush thee—hush thee—hush-a-by, darling,

        Tenderest angels will guard thy rest.”

"The Childless Mother's Lullaby" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).

A draft of "The Childless Mother's Lullaby" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.