"With heart and soul the mother loved her poet son as her very owe. So when he returned to the old home after his wanderings in search of health, he found her waiting there with hand and heart to welcome him. ' For love can never lose its own.' She had made life harder for Richard and the rest of us by frustrating the family plans, but her devotion now, when health had failed him, more than atoned for all the past. She assigned to us our duties. The sisters meant to do their best. But their inexperienced best would have been poor indeed, had not the mother's watchful care supervised it all.
She had her weak points; but she was strong in affection, her motherly solicitude constantly showing itself in her untiring vigilance lest we might fail to do all that could be done for Richard's comfort. In this hour of trial she shone forth at her best, and seemed lovelier than ever, because the chastening hand was upon her, which left her meeker and lowlier of heart—more Christlike than before.
The light of home hath a constant flame
And pure as a vestal fire,
It burns, it burns for ever the same
For nature feeds the pyre.
The sea of ambition is tempest tossed
And its hopes may vanish like foam,
But when sails are shivered and rudder lost
Then look to the light of home'
Thus passed away the beloved Risiart Ddu o Wynedd! March 8, 1870, aged 34. We believe that the experience of the dear relatives who watched with him in his last hours is expressed in the following pathetic lines of Alice Gary:—
