poem

Mother Mind, Oct 17, 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 pushes back on the idea that poems arrive by craft or command. People ask her for occasional verses—for festivals, for ceremony—and she turns them down, comparing herself to Balaam, who could not curse or bless by his own will. Instead she describes something closer to pregnancy: a thought taken in, carried "through weary length of days," growing with her own growth of soul until it must be born, not without pain. That image of poems as children, kept close, shown only rarely, and still needing a friend's "baptismal rites" to feel complete, gives the piece its quiet force. The music is plain hymn-like quatrains, unshowy, which suits her point—she is not performing skill but testifying to patience. It still lands because it reframes creativity as endurance and listening rather than cleverness, a comfort to anyone who waits long for an idea to feel true.

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