Mother Poem

To My Mother

Christina Rossetti (1842)

To-day’s your natal day, Sweet flowers I bring; Mother, accept, I pray, My offering. And may you happy live, And long us bless; Receiving as you give Great happiness.

To My Mother

Edgar Allan Poe (1849)

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother,” Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you, In setting my Virginia’s spirit free. My mother—my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

There was a Child went Forth

Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 edition)

There was a child went forth every day; And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf, And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him. The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him; Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road; And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen, And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school, And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys, And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl, And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went. His own parents, He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and birth’d him, They gave this child more of themselves than that; They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him. The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table; The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by; The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust; The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure, The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal, The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks? Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what are they? The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows, Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries, The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between, Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off, The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat slack-tow’d astern, The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping, The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it lies motionless in, The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud; These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

Mother o’ Mine

Rudyard Kipling (1891)

If I were hanged on the highest hill,    Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine I know whose love would follow me still,    Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! If I were drowned in the deepest sea,    Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine I know whose tears would come down to me,    Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine! If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole,    Mother o’ mine, 0 mother o’ mine!

790

Emily Dickinson

Nature — the Gentlest Mother is, Impatient of no Child — The feeblest — or the waywardest — Her Admonition mild — In Forest — and the Hill — By Traveller — be heard — Restraining Rampant Squirrel — Or too impetuous Bird — How fair Her Conversation — A Summer Afternoon — Her Household — Her Assembly — And when the Sun go down — Her Voice among the Aisles Incite the timid prayer Of the minutest Cricket — The most unworthy Flower — When all the Children sleep — She turns as long away As will suffice to light Her lamps — Then bending from the Sky — With infinite Affection — And infiniter Care — Her Golden finger on Her lip — Wills Silence — Everywhere —