Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE MOTHER, by CAROLINE CLIVE First Line: I feel within myself a life Last Line: Thou too wilt rise with adams's dust. Alternate Author Name(s): V; Meysey-wigley, Caroline Subject(s): Mothers; Pregnancy | ||||||||
I FEEL within myself a life That holds 'gainst death a feeble strife; They say 'tis destined that the womb Shall be its birthplace and its tomb. O child! if it be so, and thou Thy native world must never know, Thy Mother's tears will mourn the day When she must kiss thy Death-born face. But oh! how lightly thou wilt pay The forfeit due from Adam's race! Thou wilt have lived, but not have wept, Have died, and yet have known no pain; And sin's dark presence will have swept Across thy soul, yet left no stain. Mine is thy life; my breath thy breath: I only feel the dread, the woe; And in thy sickness or thy death, Thy Mother bears the pain, not thou. Life nothing means for thee, but still It is a living thing, I feel; A sex, a shape, a growth are thine, A form and human face divine; A heart with passions wrapp'd therein, A nature doom'd, alas! to sin; A mind endow'd with latent fire, To glow, unfold, expand, aspire; Some likeness from thy father caught, Or by remoter kindred taught; Some faultiness of mind or frame, To wake the bitter sense of shame; Some noble passions to unroll, The generous deed, the human tear; Some feelings which thy Mother' soul Has pour'd on thine, while dwelling near. All this must past unbloom'd away To worlds remote from earthly day; Worlds whither we by paths less brief, Are journeying on through joy and grief, And where thy Mother, now forlorn, May learn to known her child unborn; Oh, yes! created thing, I trust Thou too wilt rise with Adams's dust. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NINE MONTHS MAKING by LISEL MUELLER A SUNDAY DRIVE THROUGH EAGLE COUNTRY by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR CONCEPTION FRAGMENT by JULIE CARR SONG FOR BABY-O, UNBORN by DIANE DI PRIMA TO BE BORN AGAIN by ANSELM HOLLO |
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