Egypt :: :: University of Virginia Library

In the days remembered not,
Oft you stood beside my cot,
Sometimes touched by terrors wild
For the welfare of your child;
Yet above my slumbering head
Happy mother's tears you shed,
And to God entrusting me
Whispered, “A demain, chéri.”

When my feet had just begun
To be confident to run,

And my waking senses found
Grass was green and balls were round,
Always when I bade good night,
At the fading of the light,
You would take me on your knee,
Murmuring, “A demain, chéri.”

When I found those springs of joy
That delight the growing boy,
All the day to roam the field
Rod and bat and oar to wield,
Take my place beside the board,
Prizes win and treasures hoard,
Sealed to sleep I still could be
With your “A demain, chéri.”

When to school I must be sent,
For reward and punishment,
Often from your cell of grief
Love permitted you relief;
Borne upon his wings, you wept
Oft beside me, as I slept,
Almost like a piteous plea
Breathing “A demain, chéri.”

To the Thames, that silvery falls,
Weir to weir, by Windsor's walls,
Or the Cam, whose stiller state
Leaves in autumn tessellate,
When the dusk had starred the sky
Oft your anxious thought would fly

Over hill and vale and lea,
Crying “A demain, chéri.”

When the world, a larger school
With scant pity for the fool,
Made all other lessons vain
With its discipline of pain,
Oft I came to seek your face,
Quiet in your quiet place,
And with mingled grief and glee
Heard your “A demain, chéri.”

Still, unless by fancy vain
Mocked, or memory's echoing strain,

Still, though vanished from my sight,
Always at the fall of night,
Like a message from the hills,
Carried by repeating rills,
I can hear you call to me,
Bidding “A demain, chéri.”