To My Mother.
"Dear Mother, Call Me Home" (1863)
(Ballad.)
Words by Finley Johnson
Music by W. Virgil Wallace

Baltimore, MD: Henry McCaffrey, 205 Balt. St.
Washington, D.C.: John F. Ellis
Plate No. 686
[Source: n1352@UNC/Duke]

1. I walk abroad throughout the earth,
Alone and wretched thing,
The blessed fount of sympathy
Within me will not spring,
I languish for my childhood’s home,
For boyhood’s sunny track,
I find this earth a wilderness,
Then Mother, call me back,
And never more my feet shall stray
In foreign lands to roam;
I shall but live my Mother dear,
For thee, and love, and home.
For thee, and love, and home.

2. Oh, often have I sadly gaz’d
Upon the azure sky,
And fancied that in some bright star
I saw thy gentle eye;
And in my bosom’s inmost depths
Soft whisperings would come
To tell me of the happiness
I once enjoy’d at home;
Then from the dial of my soul
The shadow, oh, cast back,
Receive me to thy arms again,
Dear Mother, call me back.
Dear Mother, call me back.