poem

Mother Mind — Jul 19, 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 wrote plenty of public verse in her lifetime, but here she insists that poetry itself was never a craft she chose. She describes turning away requests to write occasional pieces, claiming she has no power to "bless or curse" on command. Instead, real poems arrive like children: a thought "greatens" inside her over long seasons, born only when ready, met "'twixt smiles and tears." That birth imagery is the poem's strongest move, turning composition into something closer to motherhood than authorship, patient and half-mysterious even to the poet herself.

The music is plain, hymn-like ballad meter, unhurried and confiding, matching her claim that she never sat down to "fashion" anything clever.

It still lands because anyone who has waited on an idea, a decision, or a piece of work to feel finished rather than forced will recognize that quiet, stubborn gestation she describes so exactly.

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