Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO WOMEN: MOTHER, by E. DORSET


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO WOMEN: MOTHER, by                    
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.





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