The Parents Part

"Wait not till the little hands are at rest

Ere you fill them full of flowers;

Wait not for the crowning tuberose

To make sweet the last sad hours;

But while, in the busy household band,

Your darlings still need your guiding hand,

Oh fill their lives with sweetness.

"Remember the homes whence the light has fled.

Where the rose has faded away;

And the love that glows in youthful hearts,

Oh, cherish it while you may,

And make your home a garden of flowers,

Where joy shall bloom through childhood's hours,

And fill young lives with sweetness."

~Home-Making, By Rev. J.R. Miller, D.D. (1882)