Friendship Poems

Mother's Day Poems

[Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome]
by Christina Rossetti Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome Has many sonnets: so here now shall be One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home, To my first Love, my Mother, on whose... Continue reading [Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome]

To My Mother
by Christina Rossetti 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.... Continue reading To My Mother

I Love You
by Carl Sandburg "I love you," said a great mother. "I love you for what you are knowing so well what you are. And I love you more yet, child, deeper yet than ever, child, for what you are going to be, knowing so well... Continue reading I Love You

Mother's Day Proclamation
By Julia Ward Howe Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,... Continue reading Mother's Day Proclamation

Mother Mind
By Julia Ward Howe I never made a poem, dear friend-- I never sat me down, and said, This cunning brain and patient hand Shall fashion something to be read. Men often came to me, and prayed I should indite a fitting verse For fast,... Continue reading Mother Mind

HERODIAS Daughter presenting to her Mother St. JOHN's Head in a Charger, also Painted by her self
By Anne Killigrew BEhold, dear Mother, who was late our Fear, Disarm'd and Harmless, I present you here; The Tongue ty'd up, that made all Jury quake, And which so often did our Greatness shake; No Terror sits upon his Awful Brow, Where Fierceness reign'd,... Continue reading HERODIAS Daughter presenting to her Mother St. JOHN's Head in a Charger, also Painted by her self

Mother o' Mine
By Rudyard Kipling 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... Continue reading Mother o' Mine

Prayer For a New Mother
By Dorothy Parker The things she knew, let her forget again- The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her... Continue reading Prayer For a New Mother

Godmother
By Dorothy Parker The day that I was christened- It's a hundred years, and more!- A hag came and listened At the white church door, A-hearing her that bore me And all my kith and kin Considerately, for me, Renouncing sin. While some gave me... Continue reading Godmother

Our Mother Pocahontas
By Vachel Lindsay (Note: -- Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.) "Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May -- did she wonder? does she remember -- in the dust -- in the cool tombs?"... Continue reading Our Mother Pocahontas

To My Mother
By Edgar Allan Poe 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... Continue reading To My Mother

Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All.
By Walt Whitman PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased--but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd;) As she call'd to her earth with mournful... Continue reading Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All.

Mother and Babe.
By Walt Whitman I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother; The sleeping mother and babe--hush'd, I study them long and long.... Continue reading Mother and Babe.

Fawn's Foster-Mother
By Robinson Jeffers The old woman sits on a bench before the door and quarrels With her meagre pale demoralized daughter. Once when I passed I found her alone, laughing in the sun And saying that when she was first married She lived in the... Continue reading Fawn's Foster-Mother

Mother's Loss
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox If I could clasp my little babe Upon my breast to-night, I would not mind the blowing wind That shrieketh in affright. Oh, my lost babe! my little babe, My babe with dreamful eyes; Thy bed is cold; and night wind... Continue reading Mother's Loss

The Last Words Of My English Grandmother
By William Carlos Williams There were some dirty plates and a glass of milk beside her on a small table near the rank, disheveled bed-- Wrinkled and nearly blind she lay and snored rousing with anger in her tones to cry for food, Gimme something... Continue reading The Last Words Of My English Grandmother

The Negro Mother
By Langston Hughes Children, I come back today To tell you a story of the long dark way That I had to climb, that I had to know In order that the race might live and grow. Look at my face -- dark as the... Continue reading The Negro Mother

Mother to Son
By Langston Hughes 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 floorâ€" Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And... Continue reading Mother to Son

The Virgin Mother
By George William Russell WHO is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother nature they have named with scorn Calling its holy substance common clay. Yet... Continue reading The Virgin Mother

The Virgin Mother
By David Herbert Lawrence My little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines Into this strange countrie, Where people are crowded like thistles, Yet are shapely and comely to see. My little love, my dearest Twice... Continue reading The Virgin Mother

Monologue of a Mother
By David Herbert Lawrence This is the last of all, this is the last! I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire, I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross, Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my... Continue reading Monologue of a Mother

Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel
By Walter Savage Landor MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel; My fingers ache, my lips are dry: O, if you felt the pain I feel! But O, who ever felt as I? No longer could I doubt him true-- All other men may use deceit;... Continue reading Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel

Young Mother
By Robert William Service Her baby was so full of glee, And through the day It laughed and babbled on her knee In happy play. It pulled her hair all out of curl With noisy joy; So peppy she was glad her girl Was not... Continue reading Young Mother

The Mother
By Robert William Service There will be a singing in your heart, There will be a rapture in your eyes; You will be a woman set apart, You will be so wonderful and wise. You will sleep, and when from dreams you start, As of... Continue reading The Mother

Spartan Mother
By Robert William Service My mother loved her horses and Her hounds of pedigree; She did not kiss the baby hand I held to her in glee. Of course I had a sweet nou-nou Who tended me with care, And mother reined her nag to... Continue reading Spartan Mother

Someone's Mother
By Robert William Service Someone's Mother trails the street Wrapt in rotted rags; Broken slippers on her feet Drearily she drags; Drifting in the bitter night, Gnawing gutter bread, With a face of tallow white, Listless as the dead. Someone's Mother in the dim Of... Continue reading Someone's Mother

The Mother
By Robert William Service Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in wedded bliss How others claim with joy... Continue reading The Mother

Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid
By Sir Philip Sidney His mother dear Cupid offended late, Because that Mars grown slacker in her love, With pricking shot he did not throughly more To keep the pace of their first loving state. The boy refus'd for fear of Mars's hate, Who threaten'd... Continue reading Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid

Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbard's Tale
By Edmund Spenser By that he ended had his ghostly sermon, The fox was well induc'd to be a parson, And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire, How to a benefice he might aspire. "Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed: Much good... Continue reading Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbard's Tale

The Mother Mourns
By Thomas Hardy When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, And sedges were horny, And summer's green wonderwork faltered On leaze and in lane, I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly Came wheeling around me Those phantoms obscure and insistent That shadows unchain. Till airs from the... Continue reading The Mother Mourns

The Grandmother
By Lord Alfred Tennyson I. And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise, Never the wife for Willy: he would n't... Continue reading The Grandmother

The Mother Of God
By William Butler Yeats The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare Through the hollow of an ear; Wings beating about the room; The terror of all terrors that I bore The Heavens in my womb. Had I not found content among the shows Every... Continue reading The Mother Of God

The Song Of The Old Mother
By William Butler Yeats I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till stars are beginning to blink and peep; And the young lie long... Continue reading The Song Of The Old Mother

Mother and sphinx
By Eugene Field (EGYPTIAN FOLK-SONG) Grim is the face that looks into the night Over the stretch of sands; A sullen rock in a sea of white-- A ghostly shadow in ghostly light, Peering and moaning it stands. "Oh, is it the king that rides... Continue reading Mother and sphinx

Mother and child
By Eugene Field One night a tiny dewdrop fell Into the bosom of a rose,-- "Dear little one, I love thee well, Be ever here thy sweet repose!" Seeing the rose with love bedight, The envious sky frowned dark, and then Sent forth a messenger... Continue reading Mother and child

Child and mother
By Eugene Field O mother-my-love, if you'll give me your hand, And go where I ask you to wander, I will lead you away to a beautiful land,-- The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder. We'll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there, Where moonlight and... Continue reading Child and mother

To Mother
By Marina Tsvetaeva In the old Strauss waltz for the first time We had listened to your quiet call, Since then all the living things are alien And the knocking of the clock consoles. We, like you, are gladly greeting sunsets, And are drunk on... Continue reading To Mother

On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture
By William Cowper Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smiles I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else, how distinct they... Continue reading On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture

If Nature smiles -- the Mother must
By Emily Dickinson If Nature smiles -- the Mother must I'm sure, at many a whim Of Her eccentric Family -- Is She so much to blame?... Continue reading If Nature smiles -- the Mother must

Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is
By 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... Continue reading Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is

My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty
By Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy. Behold, the Marquis of Glee has attainted felicity; this city and plain are filled with soldiers and drums and flags.... Continue reading My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty

7. Ah, woe is me, my Mother dear
By Robert Burns AH, woe is me, my mother dear! A man of strife ye've born me: For sair contention I maun bear; They hate, revile, and scorn me. I ne'er could lend on bill or band, That five per cent. might blest me; And... Continue reading 7. Ah, woe is me, my Mother dear

234. A Mother's Lament for her Son's Death
By Robert Burns FATE gave the word, the arrow sped, And pierc'd my darling's heart; And with him all the joys are fled Life can to me impart. By cruel hands the sapling drops, In dust dishonour'd laid; So fell the pride of all my... Continue reading 234. A Mother's Lament for her Son's Death

Mother and Poet
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning I. Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast And are wanting a great... Continue reading Mother and Poet

The Mother
By Gwendolyn Brooks Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or... Continue reading The Mother

O Germany, Pale Mother!
By Bertolt Brecht Let others speak of her shame, I speak of my own. O Germany, pale mother! How soiled you are As you sit among the peoples. You flaunt yourself Among the besmirched. The poorest of your sons Lies struck down. When his hunger... Continue reading O Germany, Pale Mother!

The Mother
By Lucy Maud Montgomery Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold . . . Your hair like a miser's dream of... Continue reading The Mother

Mother Earth
By Henry Van Dyke Mother of all the high-strung poets and singers departed, Mother of all the grass that weaves over their graves the glory of the field, Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-bosomed, patient, impassive, Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical... Continue reading Mother Earth

A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday
By Henry Van Dyke Lord Jesus, Thou hast known A mother's love and tender care: And Thou wilt hear, while for my own Mother most dear I make this birthday prayer. Protect her life, I pray, Who gave the gift of life to me; And... Continue reading A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday

To My Mother
By Robert Louis Stevenson You too, my mother, read my rhymes For love of unforgotten times, And you may chance to hear once more The little feet along the floor.... Continue reading To My Mother

My Mother
By Claude McKay I Reg wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. Her hand she slowly lifted from her... Continue reading My Mother