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.

To My Mother / Edgar Allan Poe

To My Mother

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.

~~
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
from Poetical Works, 1858

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edgar Allan Poe biography

"To My Mother" read by The Wandering Paddy AKA Jamie.

Mother to Son / Langston Hughes

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

~~
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
from The Weary Blues, 1926

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

Langston Hughes biography

"Mother to Son" read by Viola Davis Courtesy Youtube.

My Mother / Ann Taylor

My Mother

Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hush’d me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
                                        My Mother.

When sleep forsook my open eye,
Who was it sung sweet hushaby,
And rock’d me that I should not cry?
                                        My Mother.

Who sat and watched my infant head,
When sleeping in my cradle bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed?
                                        My Mother.

When pain and sickness made me cry,
Who gazed upon my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
                                        My Mother.

Who dress’d my doll in clothes so gay,
And taught me pretty how to play.
And minded all I had to say?
                                        My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
                                        My Mother.
 

Who taught my infant lips to pray,
And love God’s holy book and day,
And walk in Wisdom’s pleasant way?
                                        My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who was so very kind to me?
                                        My Mother.

Ah, no! the thought I cannot bear;
And if God please my life to spare,
I hope I shall reward thy care,
                                        My Mother.

When thou art feeble, old, and gray,
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I will soothe thy pains away,
                                        My Mother.

And when I see thee hang thy head,
‘Twill be my turn to watch thy bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed,
                                        My Mother.

For God who lives above the skies
Would look with vengeance in His eyes,
If I should ever dare despise
                                        My Mother.

Illustration by Walter Crane (1845-1915). Public domain.

~~

Ann Taylor (1782-1866)
from Original Poems for Infant Minds, 1834

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ann Taylor biography

For You, Mother / Hilda Conkling

For You, Mother

I have a dream for you, Mother,
Like a soft thick fringe to hide your eyes.
I have a surprise for you, Mother,
Shaped like a strange butterfly.
I have found a way of thinking
To make you happy;
I have made a song and a poem
All twisted into one.
If I sing, you listen;
If I think, you know.
I have a secret from everybody in the world full of people
But I cannot always remember how it goes;
It is a song
For you, Mother,
With a curl of cloud and a feather of blue
And a mist
Blowing along the sky.
If I sing it some day, under my voice,
Will it make you happy?

~~
Hilda Conkling (1910-1986)
from Poems by a Little Girl, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]

Hilda Conkling biography

A Garden of Love / Lilian Leveridge

A Garden of Love

Mother, if my love for you
Could express itself in flowers,
Were each prayer a shower of dew
In the morn and evening hours,
You would walk in blossomed ways,
Fair and fragrant, all your days.

Blooms that clothed the vales and hills
In the springtides long ago —
Crocuses and daffodils,
Hawthorn, lilies, white as snow,
Primroses and cuckoo flowers
You would find within your bowers.

Pearly daisies, pink and white,
Marigolds and meadow rue,
All would bloom for your delight.
Here would wait to welcome you
Every flower that loved the May
In the homeland far away.

Flowers that on an alien shore
Made your homesick heart grow glad,
Till you loved it more and more,
Found the sweetness in the sad —
Blowing by the northern streams,
Do they greet you still in dreams?

Trilliums that starred the dells,
Mayflowers’ rosy, perfumed bells,
Columbines o’er hill and vale,
Violets yellow, purple, white —
Countless well-springs of delight!

You, who loved all lovely things,
Taught my heart to love them, too
Essences of all the springs
That my happy childhood knew,
Spirit-sweet, invisible,
Linger all about you still

Take this little wreath of verse,
With the blossoms that I send —
Dearest in God’s universe,
Best of sweethearts, truest friend!
Fairest flowers may fade, but never
Love that lives and blooms for ever.

~~
Lilian Leveridge (1879-1953)
from The Blossom Trail, 1932

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Lilian Leveridge biography

A Song for Mother's Day / Marguerite Wilkinson

A Song for Mother's Day

Mother, you gave me sun and stars,
Great hills, and rivers undefiled,
For, when you gave me life, you gave
Love of their beauty to your child.

Without you I could not have known
The Spring that makes the valleys green,
The rustling of the wings of birds,
Or clover fragrance kind and keen.

Your travail gave me all my joys,
Laughter and talk and young delight
And dreams that float like clouds in heaven
High, high above me, shy and white.

For all these proud and lovely things
Thanks are too small a thing to give –
Mother, I thank you with my love,
Who gave me this good life to live.

~~
Marguerite Wilkinson (1883-1928)
from Bluestone: Lyrics, 1920

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

Marguerite Wilkinson biography

Candles that Burn / Aline Kilmer

Candles that Burn

Candles that burn for a November birthday,
   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,
As you go upward in your radiant dying
   Carry my prayer to God.

Tell Him she is so small and so rebellious,
   Tell Him her words are music on her lips,
Tell Him I love her in her wayward beauty
   Down to her fingertips.

Ask Him to keep her brave and true and lovely,
   Vivid and happy, gay as she is now,
Ask Him to let no shadow touch her beauty,
   No sorrow mar her brow.

All the sweet saints that came for her baptising,
   Tell them I pray them to be always near.
Ask them to keep her little feet from stumbling,
   Her gallant heart from fear.

Candles that burn for a November birthday,
   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,
As you go upward in your radiant dying,
   Carry my prayer to God.

~~
Aline Kilmer (1888-1941)
from Candles that Burn, 1919

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

Aline Kilmer biography

Demeter in November / Mary Josephine Benson

Demeter in November

Her fingers pluck at the window-ledge —
               Demeter’s, come like a graveless ghost —
They pry and pluck like a rifting wedge
And she calls with the voice of the wind in sedge,
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

The Mother of Earth grew crazed o’ernight —
               Demeter roams November-tossed —
And her hair, erst twined with wheat-ears bright
And poppies, is rent as she seeks in fright
               Persephone, her lost.

The flowers of all the earth are dead,
               Transfixed and grey and rimed with frost,
And its heavy corn is harvested —
Demeter shivers and shrieks in dread,
               “Persephone is lost!”

Has the scythe then circled thy fairest child,
               Demeter, and is thy questing crost,
That thou go’st with mien so changed and wild?
Is thy daughter by Death or Life beguiled,
               Persephone, thy lost?

In at each curtain she peers and raves,
               Now here must pause, now hence must post,
Then speeds to the ocean to scan the waves,
Or hastes to her furrows that gloom like graves —
               Persephone is lost.

Athwart the rain and the riven cloud
               Demeter, gone like a driven ghost,
At window of cot or castle proud
Is wailing low and is calling loud —
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

~~
Mary Josephine Benson (1887-1965)
from My Pocket Beryl, 1921

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

Mary Josephine Benson biography

The Mother (II) / William Wilfred Campbell

The Mother

II

From throes of pain they buried me low,
For death had finished a mother’s woe.

But under the sod, in the grave’s dread doom,
I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom.  

I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest
Was broken in wailings on my dead breast.

I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling:
Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring!

When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red
She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed.

I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night,
And then I rose in my graveclothes white.

I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed
To the world of sorrowing overhead.    

Men would have called me a thing of harm,
But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm.

I felt my breasts swell under my shroud;
No stars shone white, no winds were loud;

But I stole me past the graveyard wall,    
For the voice of my baby seemed to call;

And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb:
‘Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come.’

I passed the streets to my husband’s home;
The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb;      

I heard the sound of each sleeper’s breath,
Light waves that break on the shores of death.

I listened a space at my chamber door,
Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor.

My babe was asleep on a stranger arm,      
‘O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm,

‘Though dark and so deep, for mother is there!
O come with me from the pain and care!

‘O come with me from the anguish of earth,
Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth,

‘Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long,
And mother will croon you a slumber-song—

‘A slumber-song that will charm your eyes
To a sleep that never in earth-song lies!

‘The loves of earth your being can spare,    
But never the grave, for mother is there.’

I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast,
And stole me back to my long, long rest.

And here I lie with him under the stars,
Dead to earth, its peace and its wars;      

Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms,
So long as he cradles up soft in my arms.

And heaven may open its shimmering doors,
And saints make music on pearly floors,

And hell may yawn to its infinite sea,      
But they never can take my baby from me.

For so much a part of my soul he hath grown
That God doth know of it high on His throne.

And here I lie with him under the flowers
That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours,      

With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea,
Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me.

~~

William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918), 1891

from The Dread Voyage Poems, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wilfred Campbell biography

Rock Me to Sleep / Elizabeth Akers Allen

Rock Me to Sleep

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

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!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,–
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I tonight for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,–   
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;–
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;–   
Rock me to sleep, mother,– rock me to sleep!

~~
Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832-1911)

from Poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

Elizabeth Akers Allen biography

Mother o' Mine / Rudyard Kipling

Mother o' Mine

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,
   Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

I know whose prayers would make me whole,
    Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

~~

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

from The Light that Failed, 1892

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

Rudyard Kipling biography

Sacrament / Louise Morey Bowman

Sacrament

To My Mother 

I cannot talk of her:
She's everywhere —
In the Spring trees' soft blooming,
In the air
That's filled with bird songs,
In a symphony,
Or golden throbbing of an organ prayer.
She's with me when I serve
Some hungry one with food.
She's with me when I'm dressed
In some gay, dainty frock for very best.
Whose colour puts me in a dancing mood.
When I write, read, or play my violin,
I hear her singing to me deep within.
She made a sacrament of life; and, hidden there,
She reaches out from God's eternity,
To touch all bread and wine
Of mine.

~~
Louise Morey Bowman (1882-1944)
from Moonlight and Common Day, 1922

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

Louise Morey Bowman biography

Mother / Lola Ridge

Mother

Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.

~~
Lola Ridge
from Sun-Up and other poems, 1920

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

Lola Ridge biography
Mother on The Penny Blog.

To My Mother / Thomas Moore

To My Mother

They tell us of an Indian tree
Which howsoe'er the sun and sky
May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom, wide and high,
Far better loves to bend its arms
Downward again to that dear earth
From which the life that fills and warms
Its grateful being, first had birth.
'Tis thus, though wooed by flattering friends,
And fed with fame (if fame it be),
This heart, my own dear mother, bends,
With love's true instinct, back to thee!

~~
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Moore biography
Mother on The Penny Blog.

When Mary the Mother Kissed the Child / Charles G.D. Roberts

       
When Mary the Mother Kissed the Child

When Mary the Mother kissed the Child
And night on the wintry hills grew mild,
And the strange star swung from the courts of air
To serve at a manger with kings in prayer,
Then did the day of the simple kin
And the unregarded folk begin.

When Mary the Mother forgot the pain,
In the stable of rock began love's reign.
When that new light on their grave eyes broke
The oxen were glad and forgot their yoke;
And the huddled sheep in the far hill fold
Stirred in their sleep and felt no cold.

When Mary the Mother gave of her breast
To the poor inn's latest and lowliest guest,—
The God born out of the woman's side,—
The Babe of Heaven by Earth denied,—
Then did the hurt ones cease to moan,
And the long-supplanted came to their own.

When Mary the Mother felt faint hands
Beat at her bosom with life's demands,
And nought to her were the kneeling kings,
The serving star and the half-seen wings,
Then there was the little of earth made great,
And the man came back to the God's estate.

---
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)
from The Book of the Rose, 1903

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

Charles G.D. Roberts biography