Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TWO WOMEN: MOTHER, by E. DORSET First Line: Mother, my mother, if I break the law Last Line: I shall expire like you, without a groan. Subject(s): Mothers | ||||||||
Mother, my Mother, if I break the law, And custom of my kind, That so decrees I speak of you with awe? You would not own me if more mute than blind. To help the world grow truthful, I rehearse, As brief as brief can be, The gifts that made, no better and no worse, The life that you bequeathed, as thus I see. Yours was a ready heart, a readier hand To help, chastise, or fend, By ordered right I did not understand; Nor do I, though my days grow nigh the end. When cleft apart, as generations know, You could not, though you died, Make first approach, nor let the quick hurt show. Matching it now, I thank you for that pride. All women feared and hated you, pronounced Good fellow by all men, Even three husbands, whom you lewdly trounced And left in turn, to wish you back again. A horse's heart, a scorpion's tail for tongue, An eye that could not flinch, Scorning a lie, yet ready with a lie To save yourself -- or others -- at a pinch; Finding, by instant magic, all things clear, Considerations rot, Hating religion, with no tempering fear, Yet superstitious as a Hottentot; Two hundred pounds in weight and six feet tall, With hair that reached the knee, With wrestler's might that never knew a fall, How could you breed a fatted runt like me? You taught me not to pray (in dreams I run Your trumpet-baritone!); And yet I pray that when my time is done, I shall expire like you, without a groan. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...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 |
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