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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A DEAD MOTHER, by GORDON BOTTOMLEY Poem Explanation Poet's Biography
First Line: White-faced mother, what fragrant things
Last Line: "to watch till my child appears."
Subject(s): Abortion; Mothers
First Line: White-faced mother, what fragrant things
Last Line: "to watch till my child appears."
Subject(s): Abortion; Mothers
"WHITE-FACED mother, what fragrant things
Do you lay in the chest apart?"
"They are little birth-shifts made long ago
For the baby under my heart."
"But why do you fold them with such tears
That patter a pitiful rain?
Bearing-time is a joyous time,
And no one grieves for its pain."
"I have carried death in my breast a month
Where baby hands would cling:
Something sucks my life away
And creeps where milk should spring.
"Though I shall see my baby's face,
Its words I shall not hear;
I wait with a heart-break for its sake
On death ere the dawning year.
"Three nights agone, woe-drenched, foredone,
Sleep lent me a little grace,
And I dreamed that it and I had met
In a quiet happy place.
"So dreams a bird in the dark that night
Pales fast and day is nigh,
And sings, and wakes at its song to find
That night has still to die.
"When I think of my two lyings-in,
The birth-bed and the tomb,
I wish my baby were buried with me --
At breast or in my womb.
"I would rather lie in my grave all dead
Through still, eventless years
Than stand alone at Heaven's gate
To watch till my child appears."
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MY MOTHER'S HANDS by ANDREW HUDGINS
CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS
IN THE 25TH YEAR OF MY MOTHER'S DEATH by JUDY JORDAN
THE PAIDLIN' WEAN by ALEXANDER ANDERSON
BLASTING FROM HEAVEN by PHILIP LEVINE