To My Mother
Lines:14Movement:Romanticism
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another,Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother,"Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-- You who are more than mother unto me,And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you, In setting my Virginia's spirit free.My mother--my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but youAre mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knewBy that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.