Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WIDOW AT THE BED OF HER SON, by FRANZ WERFEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WIDOW AT THE BED OF HER SON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Holding my flickering candle
Last Line: My child, my existence, my death.
Subject(s): Mothers & Sons; Widows & Widowers


Holding my flickering candle,
I visit your dream, my child,
You sleep with the face of amazement,
But your breath comes viewless and mild.

It brought you no bitter moment
That you looked at me with a lour,
That you left me alone with my grieving
At midnight's anxious hour.

And yet! I will rouse you to courage
By night, and to life at the flood,
Your urge, your powerful striving
Runs through my shadow like blood.

Oh, son! Your drinking, your eating
Is food for your mother, I know.
Your cups as they circle are stirring
My circle of years in its flow.

And when I am sitting and stitching,
This life is uplifted and flies
To you, and my perishing vision
Fades to be flame in your eyes.

When I carried you with trembling
In the known and yet sacred womb,
You gave pain through the days that shaped you,
And grew great in the narrow gloom.

And, as you left my body
For the home and the hearth and the blue,
And as in me you were kindled,
So I am quenched in you.

My life is a self-outpouring
Into your rounded light,
And aching, I lavish upon you
My duty that is your right.

Soon shall I be naught but your laughter,
Naught but the word on your breath.
Ah, let me guard your sleeping,
My child, my existence, my death.





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