Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1903 — A Poet’s Mother. [ARTICLE]

A Poet’s Mother.

Robert Buchanan had one»d'eep enthusiasm, his mother. She was always younfe in her appearance, but he regarded her. to the end of her life, as abounding even in girlish charms. He could never realize that she was growing old. In looking at her. even when she was close upon 80, lie saw the soft blue ey«fe and golden hair which he had loved long ago. "I cannot imagine my mother as old," he said again and again, the day after she died. "I do not feel that she is dead, for Lcannot imagine the world without her." Whin, a youth of eighteen, he went up to London, "to take the world by storm," he was a miserably homesick Lad. He sat in a corner of the railway carriage, his heart aching, his eyes dim with tears. “I realized." he says, "that I was for the first ..time quite friendless and alone. I though-, of my dear mother praying for me at home, and I longed to turn back and ask her forgiveness for any pain I had caused her. Even now, I never take a railway journey nt night without recalling the dismal heartache of {that midnight journey to London." Almost dally, during this early struggle, did he receive a letter from her, nlways full of loving Instruction for his guidance. Ills answers were overflowing with heart nnd hop?. Mother nnd son were constant In this tender service. From first to last they were the best and most Intimate of friends. r >'