The Courage That My Mother Had / Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Courage That My Mother Had

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

~~
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Mine the Harvest, 1949

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Edna St. Vincent Millay biography 

 

"The courage that my mother had" read by Kathryn Sadjak  Courtesy Millay Society.