3-011-748 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Home that Waits for Me", 1864. Sheet music: words by Mary Sidwell, music composed by M. W. Balfe. 'I feel our joyful meeting near, My mother bids me come, One happy week of all the year, I live with her at home. I leave the children here to play, They will be running wild; Yet must their teacher go away, Herself to be a child. I dwell in service her with those Who are not like my own; And when at eve the lessons close, I sit and think alone. I sit and think alone...I sit and think alone...For some I love are far away, And some from earth are sped; And on a sad and sacred day, We saw our father dead. He told us, just before, his grief, To leave our mother poor; But friends have kindly brought relief, And I can help the store. I go to make her heart rejoice; My holiday is this: I come, I hear a gentle voice; I feel a tender kiss; I cry, and fall into her arms, Where once a babe I lay; There all our troubles and alarms Are sweetly sobb'd away; And looking up thro' happy tears, I see the dear old face That haunts me ever, all the years, I labour in my place. Ah, mother, could we ever part? With you I still must be; I always carry in my heart the home that waits for me'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.