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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