Sacredly to my mother.
Written a few months before the death of Minerva J. Harrison , whose suffering was long and most severe. She lived until November 4th, 1893, the eighty-fifth anniversary of her birth, when she passed away in terrible agony, but strong in the faith of a blessed Immortality.
There's a woman that I love, an' I can't tell you why,
'Taint because she's pretty, or has a beamin' eye;
Nor 'cause she's dressed in the neatest of the style,
I feel so kind o' good, that it makes me to rejoice.
She has the marks of sorrow, an' a mighty sight of care,
Her form is very stooped, an' her body frail and weir;
But I tell you after all, when I hear her precious voice,
I feel so kind o' good, that it makes me to rejoice.
She's living; in a cottage that was built long ago,
Where she's felt much of sorrow an' not a little woe;
It's where she sang her songs, in her olden time way,
With hopes just as bright as a fine summer day.
An' when I go to see her in that quiet little home,
Where I first saw the light, an' my feet began to roam,
An' see her bended form, and shake her boney hand,
So many tender feelin's come, I can't hardly stand.
And when I stoop to kiss her, an' see her eyes so dim,
An' see her wrinkled brow, with face so very slim,
An' feel the touch of lips that I felt when a boy,
My mind is full of thinkin' an' my heart full of joy.
So when I say I love her, the story is untold.
I can't tell you why, though my words were of gold;
My feelin's whisper though, yet none but angels hear,
An' waft the mystery to the skies-the love of Mother dear.
In all her sufferin' pains an' aches, I can't tell you why,
I feel something' in my mind a runnin' to the sky,
A callin' for the Saviour dear, a kind an' loving' Friend,
Just to send a little help, an' let the angels tend.
An' when they want to take her far up into the skies,
They'll bear her up so tenderly, just like an angel fillies;
An' show her to the Saviour, an' all the heavenly throng.
An' join with her a sigin' the great
Redemption song. June 27th, 1893 by H. A. Harrison.
Reminiscences of Adams, Jay and Randolph Counties, Fort Wayne, Ind., Lipes, Nelson & Singmaster, 1897, Page 366
Transcribed by Andrea Long