poem

Mother Mind — Jun 30, 2026

Julia Ward Howe

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I never made a poem, dear friend--
I never sat me down, and said,
This cunning brain and patient hand
Shall fashion something to be read.
Men often came to me, and prayed
I should indite a fitting verse
For fast, or festival, or in
Some stately pageant to rehearse.
(As if, than Balaam more endowed,
I of myself could bless or curse.)

Reluctantly I bade them go,
Ungladdened by my poet-mite;
My heart is not so churlish but
Its loves to minister delight.

But not a word I breathe is mine
To sing, in praise of man or God;
My Master calls, at noon or night,
I know his whisper and his nod.

Yet all my thoyghts to rhythms run,
To rhyme, my wisdom and my wit?
True, I consume my life in verse,
But wouldst thou know how that is writ?

'T is thus--through weary length of days,
I bear a thought within my breast
That greatens from my growth of soul,
And waits, and will not be expressed.

It greatens, till its hour has come,
Not without pain, it sees the light;
'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,
And dare not deem it perfect, quite.

These children of my soul I keep
Where scarce a mortal man may see,
Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,
Baptismal rites they claim of thee.

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📖 About this poem

Julia Ward Howe's "Mother Mind" reads like a quiet correction to anyone who imagines poems arrive by will or commission. She insists she never sat down to "fashion something to be read" — instead, thoughts grow inside her slowly, almost against her choosing, like children carried to term. That metaphor is the poem's real engine: verses become "children of my soul," conceived in privacy, born "not without pain," and viewed afterward with the mingled tenderness and doubt of a parent who can't quite call her offspring perfect. The rhythm is plain, hymn-like, unhurried — fitting for a poet who claims her gift is obedience to some inward "whisper," not performance for kings or crowds.

What still resonates is the honesty about creative labor: the refusal to perform on demand, the admission that real work ripens unseen before it ever meets an audience. It reframes inspiration not as lightning but as gestation — patient, embodied, humble.

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