Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for to-night!

These opening lines come from Elizabeth Akers Allen’s immensely popular sentimental poem “Rock Me to Sleep,” written in the mid-19th century and widely reprinted in newspapers and magazines. The speaker, worn by adult burdens and longing for comfort, imagines reversing time to return—if only for a night—to the safety of childhood and a mother’s soothing presence. The poem’s fame was amplified during and after the American Civil War era, when themes of loss, exhaustion, and yearning for home resonated strongly with readers. The piece also became entangled in a long-running authorship dispute, but it is now generally credited to Akers Allen.

The couplet expresses a universal wish: to undo time’s forward motion and recover the emotional refuge of childhood. “Time” is personified as something that can be addressed and implored, while “just for to-night” underscores the modesty—and poignancy—of the request: the speaker does not demand a permanent escape, only a brief reprieve from adult sorrow. The lines set up the poem’s central movement from fatigue and disillusionment toward an imagined return to maternal care (“rock me to sleep”), making nostalgia not merely a memory but a form of consolation. The enduring appeal lies in its direct, incantatory rhythm and its candid articulation of vulnerability.