John Hill Hewitt - Let Me Kiss My Mother's Picture

1.
Let me kiss my mother's picture.
See my lips are cold in death;
Let me gaze upon her features­­
Bless her with my latest breath.
Mother! Oh, how much I love you!
Oh how dearly love you now!
Do not chide me for my folly;
Death's cold hand is on my brow.

REFRAIN
Mother, mother gentle mother,
Do not let my fate distress you;
Dying in a foreign country­­
Still I breathe my prayer­­
God bless you!

2.
Lone and friendless I have wander'd
To this land­­the exile's rest;
When they sing the song of Freedom,
And with equal rights are blest.
Mother! fair hands nurse me kind-ly;
Still­­they're stranger hands to me;
None so tender as a mother's­­
Soothe my live long agony.

REFRAIN
Mother, mother gentle mother,
Do not let my fate distress you;
Dying in a foreign country­­
Still I breathe my prayer­­
God bless you!

3.
Tell the lov'd one I left weeping,
That, with you, she shares my heart,
Tell her we will meet in heaven
Never, never more to part.
Mother­­Rhoda, both dear idols,
Closely to my quenching lips
I miss these well remember'd features
Pictured in Death's dark eclipse.

REFRAIN
Mother, mother gentle mother,
Do not let my fate distress you;
Dying in a foreign country­­
Still I breathe my prayer­­
God bless you!