Life

11 Heartwarming Mother’s Day Poems To Send To Your Mom This Year

by Kaitlyn Wylde

May 7, 2019

George Rudy/Shutterstock

Finding the right words for your mom on Mother's Day is an exercise in impossibility. No combination of words or phrases is ever enough or exact for the woman who gave you life. The only exception to this, of course, is poetry. When in doubt, declare your love for your mother with the help of a poet. There are so many amazing poems send your mom on Mother's Day when you just can't find the words to tell your mom what she means to you. Not only will your mom be moved by the poetry, but she'll be impressed with you knowledge of literature and feel convinced that she's done something right being your mother.

Not that writing your own cards or captions isn't the best thing to do, but if you're like me, you run out of nice things to say and the card is incredibly short and your captions are totally lifeless. "Happy Mother's Day, I love you" only goes so far. Follow up a standard greeting with a moving and evocative quote from a famous poet, and the card comes to life and the caption becomes an artistic statement that totally elevates the post. But because you probably don't have time to search for the perfect mom poem to quote, I've done it for you. Here are some of my favorite heart-wrenching and nostalgic poems that are totally perfect for celebrating mom on Mother's Day.

"My Mother" By Ann Taylor

Who sat and watched my infant head

When sleeping on my cradle bed,

And tears of sweet affection shed? My Mother.

When pain and sickness made me cry,

Who gazed upon my heavy eye,

And wept for fear that I should die? My Mother.

Who taught my infant lips to pray

And love God’s holy book and day,

And walk in wisdom’s pleasant way? My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be

Affectionate and kind to thee,

Who wast so very kind to me, My Mother?

Ah, no! the thought I cannot bear,

And if God please my life to spare

I hope I shall reward they care, My Mother.

When thou art feeble, old and grey,

My healthy arm shall be thy stay,

And I will soothe thy pains away, My Mother.

"Sonnet To My Mother" By George Barker

Most near, most dear, most loved, and most far,

Under the huge window where I often found her

Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,

Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand,

Irresistible as Rabelais but most tender for

The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,—

She is a procession no one can follow after

But be like a little dog following a brass band.

She will not glance up at the bomber or condescend

To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar,

But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain

Whom only faith can move, and so I send

O all her faith and all my love to tell her

That she will move from mourning into morning.

"What I Learned From My Mother" By Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds.

I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

"Richer Then Gold" by Strickland Gillian

You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be –I had a mother who read to me.

"Tribute to Mother" By John Greenleaf Whittier

A picture memory brings to me;

I look across the years and see

Myself beside my mother’s knee.

I feel her gentle hand restrain

My selfish moods, and know again

A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.

But wiser now, a man gray grown,

My childhood’s needs are better known.

My mother’s chastening love I own.

‘"Sonnets Are Full of Love" By Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me

To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose kneeI learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come

And so because you love me, and because

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name:

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

"Rock Me to Sleep" By Elizabth Akers Allen

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for tonight!

Mother, come back from the echoless shore,

Take me again to your heart as of yore;

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay,—

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;

Weary of sowing for others to reap;—

Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!

Many a summer the grass has grown green,

Blossomed and faded, our faces between:

Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,

Long I tonight for your presence again.

Come from the silence so long and so deep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,

No love like mother-love ever has shone;

No other worship abides and endures,—

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:

None like a mother can charm away pain

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,

Fall on your shoulders again as of old;

Let it drop over my forehead tonight,

Shading my faint eyes away from the light;

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song:

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,

With your light lashes just sweeping my face,

Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!