Poems About Mother
Curated by the Writory editorial team. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer: Read 13 classic poems about mothers, from Poe and Barrett Browning to Dickinson and Burns. Full texts with short notes on the love and loss each one carries.
Poems to and about mothers are among the most heartfelt any poet writes, because the debt is the oldest one there is. The poems here range from a small child too full of love to work, to a grown poet laying a sonnet at his mother's feet, to a whole nation of mothers grieving their war dead.
Poe calls his mother by the holiest name he knows. Barrett Browning gives voice to a mother who has lost both her sons. Dickinson makes all of nature into the gentlest mother of all.
Read these with gratitude close at hand.
To My Mother
Edgar Allan Poe · American
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.
Poe gives the name mother to the woman who mothered his lost wife, calling it dearer than any other word.
To My Mother
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.
Cradle Song
Lord Alfred Tennyson · Victorian
What does little birdie say
In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
Birdie, rest a little longer,
Till thy little wings are stronger.
So she rests a little longer,
Then she flies away.
What does little baby say,
In her bed at peep of day?
Baby says, like little birdie,
Let me rise and fly away.
Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till thy little limbs are stronger.
If she sleeps a little longer,
Baby too shall fly away.
Sweet and low, sweet and low. Tennyson's lullaby, a mother calling the wind to blow the father home.
Mother and Poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning · Victorian
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 song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
-- The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.
III.
What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?
Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.
IV.
What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees
Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees
And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;
To dream and to doat.
V.
To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.
VI.
And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ...
I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise
When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !
God, how the house feels !
VII.
At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, -- of camp-life and glory, and how
They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.
VIII.
Then was triumph at Turin : `Ancona was free !'
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.
IX.
I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained
To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.
X.
And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, `I was not to faint, --
One loved me for two -- would be with me ere long :
And Viva l' Italia ! -- he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint."
XI.
My Nanni would add, `he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls, -- was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest."
XII.
On which, without pause, up the telegraph line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -- Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, ` his, ' ` their ' mother, -- not ` mine, '
No voice says "My mother" again to me. What !
You think Guido forgot ?
XIII.
Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.
XIV.
O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark
To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say !
XV.
Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;
And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son ?
XVI.
Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short ?
XVII.
When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,
(And I have my Dead) --
XVIII.
What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,
And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :
My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair !
XIX.
Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this -- and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.
XX.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me !
[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sonswere killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]
A mother who taught her sons to love their country, and then lost both to its wars, speaks her grief aloud.
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Emily Dickinson · American
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 --
Dickinson makes all of nature a mother tending her children, and the whole world her nursery.
If Nature smiles -- the Mother must
Emily Dickinson · American
If Nature smiles -- the Mother must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family --
Is She so much to blame?
A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death
Robert Burns · Romantic
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 hopes,
My age’s future shade.
The mother-linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravish’d young;
So I, for my lost darling’s sake,
Lament the live-day long.
Death, oft I’ve feared thy fatal blow.
Now, fond, I bare my breast;
O, do thou kindly lay me low
With him I love, at rest!
Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel
Walter Savage Landor · Romantic
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;
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.
A girl cannot spin for love and confesses it to her mother in eight helpless, honest lines.
The Little Black Boy
William Blake · Romantic
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointed to the east, began to say:
"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
"And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',"
Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
My mother taught me underneath a tree. Blake lets a mother's lesson carry the whole poem's tenderness.
Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All.
Walt Whitman · American
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 voice while she stalk’d:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried--I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an
atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, my rivers’ depths;
And you, mountain sides--and the woods where my dear children’s blood, trickling,
redden’d;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb--my young men’s beautiful bodies absorb--and their precious,
precious, precious blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give my immortal
heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.
Is it Well with the Child?
Christina Rossetti · Victorian
SAFE where I cannot die yet,
Safe where I hope to lie too,
Safe from the fume and the fret;
You, and you,
Whom I never forget.
Safe from the frost and the snow,
Safe from the storm and the sun,
Safe where the seeds wait to grow
One by one,
And to come back in blow.
Mother and Babe.
Walt Whitman · American
I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe--hush’d, I study them long and long.
Two lines: a sleeping mother and child, and Whitman standing quietly by, watching them a long time.
A Child Asleep
Elizabeth Barrett Browning · Victorian
How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures, to make room for more---
Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.
Nosegays! leave them for the waking:
Throw them earthward where they grew.
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto---
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.
Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
From the paths they sprang beneath,
Now perhaps divinely holden,
Swing against him in a wreath---
We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.
Vision unto vision calleth,
While the young child dreameth on.
Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth
With the glory thou hast won!
Darker wert thou in the garden, yestermorn, by summer sun.
We should see the spirits ringing
Round thee,---were the clouds away.
'Tis the child-heart draws them, singing
In the silent-seeming clay---
Singing!---Stars that seem the mutest, go in music all the way.
As the moths around a taper,
As the bees around a rose,
As the gnats around a vapour,---
So the Spirits group and close
Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.
Shapes of brightness overlean thee,---
Flash their diadems of youth
On the ringlets which half screen thee,---
While thou smilest, . . . not in sooth
Thy smile . . . but the overfair one, dropt from some aethereal mouth.
Haply it is angels' duty,
During slumber, shade by shade:
To fine down this childish beauty
To the thing it must be made,
Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade.
Softly, softly! make no noises!
Now he lieth dead and dumb---
Now he hears the angels' voices
Folding silence in the room---
Now he muses deep the meaning of the Heaven-words as they come.
Speak not! he is consecrated---
Breathe no breath across his eyes.
Lifted up and separated,
On the hand of God he lies,
In a sweetness beyond touching---held in cloistral sanctities.
Could ye bless him---father---mother ?
Bless the dimple in his cheek?
Dare ye look at one another,
And the benediction speak?
Would ye not break out in weeping, and confess yourselves too weak?
He is harmless---ye are sinful,---
Ye are troubled---he, at ease:
From his slumber, virtue winful
Floweth outward with increase---
Dare not bless him! but be blessed by his peace---and go in peace.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a famous poem about a mother?
Edgar Allan Poe's sonnet 'To My Mother' is one of the most tender in English. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Mother and Poet' is the great poem of a mother's grief in wartime.
Are there short poems about mothers?
Yes. Robert Louis Stevenson's 'To My Mother' and Walter Savage Landor's 'Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel' both fit in a few lines.
Which poets wrote about mothers?
Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns and Alfred Tennyson all wrote about mothers. This collection gathers their strongest work on it.
How to write a poem about mother
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