Rock Me To Sleep by Elizabeth Akers Allen. Schubert - Rosamunde (excerpt). - Alison Steadman

[00:01.38]Backward,turn backward,O Time,in your flight
[00:06.51]Make me a child again just for tonight!
[00:09.18]Mother,come back from the echoless shore,
[00:12.31]Take me again to your heart as of yore
[00:15.31]Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care
[00:18.80]Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair
[00:21.93]Over my slumbers your loving watch keep
[00:25.02]Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!
[00:30.36]Backward,flow backward,O tide of the years!
[00:34.40]I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
[00:37.71]Toil without recompense,tears all in vain
[00:41.63]Take them,and give me my childhood again
[00:45.74]I have grown weary of dust and decay
[00:48.90]Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away
[00:51.68]Weary of sowing for others to reap
[00:54.81]Rock me to sleep,mother rock me to sleep!
[01:02.23]Tired of the hollow,the base,the untrue
[01:06.51]Mother,O mother,my heart calls for you!
[01:09.51]Many a summer the grass has grown green
[01:12.23]Blossomed and faded,our faces between
[01:15.63]Yet,with strong yearning and passionate pain
[01:19.15]Long I tonight for your presence again
[01:22.11]Come from the silence so long and so deep
[01:25.64]Rock me to sleep, mother,rock me to sleep!
[01:31.26]Come, let your brown hair,just lighted with gold
[01:35.31]Fall on your shoulders again as of old
[01:38.53]Let it drop over my forehead tonight
[01:41.26]Shading my faint eyes away from the light
[01:44.58]For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
[01:47.72]Happly will throng the sweet visions of yore
[01:50.89]Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep
[01:55.34]Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
[02:04.57]Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
[02:07.57]Since I last listened your lullaby song
[02:11.00]Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
[02:14.32]Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
[02:17.97]Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace
[02:21.96]With your light lashes just sweeping my face
[02:25.90]Never hereafter to wake or to weep—
[02:30.75]Rock me to sleep, mother– rock me to sleep!