The Lilacs Mother Planted

 
I listened by the doorstep as the evening shadows
fell,
While from the distance floated the faint tinklings
of a bell,
The night hawk circled overhead then dropped
straight down below,
The same as when I first lived there, in childhood,
long ago.
The trees have grown much taller in the yard
where once I played,
And now looked so majestic in their summer robes
arrayed;
And near the walk the lilacs flung their fragrance
to the air
The lilacs that my darling mother planted for us
there.
Ah, yes, what tender memories are forced on us
again,
Who leave our home in boyhood days and then
return grown men;
To seek again the playgrounds which in youth
we loved so well,
The shade beneath the apple tree, the old pump
at the well,
The woodpile, and the cellar door, the dear old
blacksmith shop,
The granary that held the corn with martin box
on top.
But dearer than the playgrounds was the perfume
in the air,
From those dear lilac bushes that my mother
planted there.
Oh, sweet and fragrant lilac, the one she loved so
well,
Thy fragrance brings to memory sad thoughts I
cannot tell;
Sweet lullabies of childhood sung at the evening
rest,
By mother clasping closely the one she loved the
best.
A voice that gently whispered sweet words of
love to me,
A face so kind and gentle, a heart with love so free;
Still yet my heart throbs feel them, still yet I see
them there,
When lilacs that she planted with fragrance fill
the air.

-Ed Blair.