Tune Req: Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your

Subject: Tune Req: BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
From: GUEST,Howie
Date: 09 Feb 13 - 01:28 PM

BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,

Subject: RE: Tune Req: BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 09 Feb 13 - 01:55 PM

You can listen to the Redd Stewart & Pee Wee King version on youtube.

Backward Turn Backward

and Slim Whitman

Slim Whitman

Subject: RE: Tune Req: BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 13 - 02:24 PM

Thanks, but they are different words!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Feb 13 - 03:28 PM

Here's the melody you need for those lyrics. (Or at least a melody you can use.)

Subject: Lyr Add: ROCK ME TO SLEEP (Elizabeth Akers Allen)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 01:20 AM

From The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song edited by Charlotte Fiske Bates (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1832), page 15:


ROCK ME TO SLEEP.
Words by Elizabeth Akers Allen

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,—
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I to-night for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Over my heart in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber's soft calm o'er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Mar 13 - 11:36 AM

Thanks for the link, 999. What a beautiful voice!

And thanks for the poem, Jim.