“Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain!
Take them, and give me my childhood again!”

—  Elizabeth Chase Allen

Rock me to sleep, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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American author, journalist, poet 1832–1911

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