Song of a Missionary’s Children

Received by Elder Thomas Waddoups from his children in Utah*

The long, long time, dear father,
Since we have looked on you,
Makes all the days seem longer,
The nights seem longer too.

While in a distant country,
Across the mighty sea,
We hope you’re feeling happy,
Wherever you may be.

Our kind, good mother tells us
How we should pray for you
When we kneel down together
At night and morning too.

She says, to distant nations,
By God’s command, you’re sent,
To preach the glorious Gospel,
And we must be content.

We pray that Jesus’ Spirit
May ever fill your heart,
And give you light and knowledge
To others to impart,

That through your heavenly counsel
The humble may be blest,
The pure in heart directed
To Zion in the west.

We pray that god will give you
Good health and appetite,
With wholesome food, and clothing,
And quiet sleep at night.

When you are waiting dinner
In homes across the sea,
When strangers’ prattling children
Are clinging to your knee;

While gently you caress them,
Do not your feelings roam,
With fatherly affection,
To your dear mountain home,

Where loving hearts are beating,
As pure as winter’s snow,
And brightest eyes are beaming
With love’s deep filial glow?

Yet, father, dearest father,
We do not, dare not pray
For your return to Zion,
’Till God shall name the day.

*Thomas, William, Cyril and Ezra, all under 8 years old. Perhaps the poet was Thomas’s wife, Mary Call Waddoups.

(1883)