The Home Circle by C. W. Hubner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 6, 1881

The Home Circle.

By C. W. Hubner

MOTHER.

WHERE is the light on earth or in sky That is like to the light of a mother's eye? Hath the fairest star we look upon, Or splendor of rising or setting sun, Glory to thrill us or magic to move, Like the eye of a mother illumined with love?

What's like the gloom, the total eclipse, That sudden surroundeth us— sealing the lips To grave-like silence, save only the cry Of the wounded soul writhing in agony— The storm that o'erwhelmeth us, cloud upon cloud, When that eye's peerless glory is veiled by the shroud?

Are the sweet sounds on earth and in air, Or those which we deem that the angels must hear, Sweet as the love-words that tenderly come, Blessing us, guiding us; filling the hours With beauty and fragrance, as God fills the flowers?

What's like the hush, the silence supreme, The mid-ocean solitude, vague as a dream, That burdens the heart when, forever and aye, We turn from her confined dust, weeping away And O! tell me where hath love holier shrine Than the spot where a mother's blest ashes recline? —C. W. Hubner.