POETS' MOTHERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 13, 23 December 1911, Page 15

POETS' MOTHERS.

An English essayist asks why havo so few poets enshrined 'the memory of their own mothers in vorse. Of mother-love in tho abstract thero is a plenty, but tho mothers of tho flesh seem to have been meagro sources of inspiration. Perhaps the best-known lines aro C'owper's, Oh, that those lips had language. Christina Eossetti wrote a series ot poems which she entitled "Valentines to My Mother." Praed and Coleridge havo attempted the theme. E. W. Henley wrote iu "Matri Dilectissiinac":— And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly homo That sho in us yet works and shines, Lives and fulfils herself Unending as the river and tho stars. What is death But life in act? How should the untecming gravo Be victor over thee, Mother, a mother of men? The writer concludes by assigning to Kipling the prize for sounding the note of supreme faith iu motherhood in bis dedication to "The Light that railed": If I were hanged on the highest hill, , Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine! I know whoso love would follow mo still, Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine! If I were damned of body and soul* I know whoso prayers would make me whole, Mother o' mine, 0 mother o' mine!