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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A REQUIEM, by JAMES HOWARD FLOWER
First Line: Mother, thy mortal balms about me!
Last Line: And the daisies!
Subject(s): Mothers
First Line: Mother, thy mortal balms about me!
Last Line: And the daisies!
Subject(s): Mothers
Mother, thy mortal balms about me!
Open thine opiate calms about me,
Deep in thyself where nor shadows nor shapes surround!
Lower me into thy cryptic oblivion profound!
For I'm weary, and wasted, and worsted, and reeling,
I'm sick of the malady of feeling—
There's cure in the kind narcotic healing
Of the ground!
Lay me where robins wing above me,
Snows melt to earliest spring above me;
Let me lie lost in some corner by lane or run—
Wild and unkempt—an old orchard or pasture trod by none;
Some neglected nook, with stone walls nigh it,
That the summer will steep in a somnolent quiet,
Where the tangles of raspberry brambles riot
In the sun.
Gone are the mortal desperations,
Gone the immortal aspirations;
Nature erases—oh, Nature at last erases
Love that found tortured releasing in tragic magic phrases;
Forgot be the months of hale defiance
Of Sin, and the moment of sick compliance—
With the dear New England dandelions
And the daisies!
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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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
ECHOES, LONG AFTER by JAMES HOWARD FLOWER