Original Mother's Day presents or gestures are increasingly tough to think of as the years tick by. A poem is a popular, touching way of showing appreciation for a mother or grandmother, and costs very little in money or in time. What most people want to send is a happy Mother's Day poem that is also meaningful and beautiful. This is often where the problem begins. Messages in shop-bought cards are frequently shallow and clichéd, and whilst many famous poets have written poems about mothers and motherhood, many are depressing.
Below is a collection of ten quality poems perfect for sending that special Mother's Day message. Click here for a list of Mother's Days around the world.
Emily Dickinson Poems
The prolific American Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) wrote two notable poems about motherhood. The shorter of the two is If Nature Smiles the Mother Must :
"If Nature smiles – the mother Must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family –
Is She so much to blame?"
The other, Nature – the Gentlest Mother, a relatively well-known six verse poem, touchingly compares nature with a mother.
To My Mother – A Robert Louis Stevenson Poem
"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"
Christina Rossetti Poems — Two Bautiful Mothers Day Verses
At aged just 11, Rossetti (1830 – 1894) wrote the simplistic but touching eight-line verse To My Mother.
The other, Sonnets Are Full of Love, written almost forty years later as the dedicatory sonnet to preface to her fourth collection of poetry, is a fond reminiscence on the mother that inspired her as a child and whose memory endures through time.
The Song of the Old Mother – A WB Yeats Poem
This is Yeats' (1865 – 1939) romantic, but quite light-hearted look at a mother's duties in a ten-line poem, with the cadence almost of a children's nursery rhyme. Its simplicity is what makes the poem so touching.
My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer – A Mark Strand Poem
This beautiful poem, rarely seen in usual compilations of Mothers Day verses, describes the poet looking at a picture of his mother which then triggers various memories of her. It's an extraordinarily evocative poem but with general concepts that reach out to appeal to the sentiments of motherhood worldwide. It's formed of three verses of between sixteen and eighteen lines.
To My Mother – An Edgar Allan Poe Poem
This poem is actually about Poe's mother-in-law but again is applicable to motherhood generally. The fourteen line poem contains strong imagery about heaven and angels and what it is to be a mother. Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) movingly summarises the love and appreciation he felt towards the subject of the poem.
Mother o Mine – A Rudyard Kipling Poem
Kipling (1865 – 1936) writes in eleven lines the evidence that a poem about mothers does not have to be serious to be poignant. It describes a number of drastic situations in which the poet imagines he could find himself and still be reached by his mother's affection.
Daffodils by William Wordsworth
It may not directly be one of the mother poems, but Mothering Sunday is associated with flowers and the coming of spring in much of the world, and few poems epitomise the beauty of spring flowers like Daffodils. Wordsworth's renowned lines about finding daffodils in the woods says as much about the beauty of nature today as when it was written in 1804.
Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) had been inspired to write the poem following a walk near his home in the Lake District with his sister in April 1802. It is one of the earlier examples of personification (giving non-human objects human characteristics or traits) as demonstrated by the daffodils "tossing their heads in sprightly dance" in the second verse.
The four six-line verses or stanzas have the rhyming scheme ABABCC. Wordsworth evokes the incredible beauty of the flowers by depicting them standing out against the surrounding scenery:
"The waves beside them danced but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee..."
Mother's Day Quotes
The following quotes about mothers are also moving:
- Oliver Wendell Holmes quote: "Youth fades; love droops; the leave of friendship fall, A mother's secret hope outlives them all."
- Honor de Balzac quote: "The heart of a mother is a deep abyss, at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."
Any of the above poems would make for excellent mother's day gifts, or complement a homemade card. Choose from Dickinson's emotional intensity to Kipling's humour or Wordsworth's romantic evocation of nature. Hand-writing and illustrating a poem adds to the thoughtfulness of the gesture.
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Luke Waterson - Author Luke Waterson writes, or has written, for various publications including Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Moon Guidebooks and The ...
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