The Light In The Window

Somewhere out on the billows

Out on the bleak stormy sea

Is a boy, a run-away laddie

That his mother is praying to see.

In her cottage beside the seashore

She’s growing old and wrinkled and wee

“I’ll set a light in the window this night

Twill guide my boy back to me.”

Ever watching ever praying

Still these mother-lips are saying

As she weeps beside the sea.

“God in Heaven, wilst thou lead him

Guide him in Thy mercy speed him

Send my wandering boy to me!”

For ten long years she’s been praying

“Send my wandering boy to me.”

And still all those years has that light

Been in the window by the sea.

Ten years on the misty Atlantic

He has tired of the wave and the foam

Oh she old and gray and I’m far away,

I go to my mothers home

Written by Ida May Schaffer

Winter of 1921-1922

Age of 16