poem

Mother Mind — Sep 8, 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 private confession dressed as a casual letter to a friend. She insists she has never sat down to "make" a poem the way a craftsman builds something to order — instead, poems arrive in her the way a child does, growing slowly inside her until they must be born. That central image, thought as unborn child, "greatens from my growth of soul" and comes forth "not without pain," gives the whole piece its quiet power; writing becomes gestation, not invention. The loose, conversational quatrains, gently rhymed but never showy, mirror her modesty — she is explaining herself, not performing. There's a nice, wry touch too, comparing herself to Balaam, who could only speak the words given him, not conjure blessing or curse at will. What still lands is the honesty about creative work as something endured and released rather than commanded — a feeling anyone who has struggled to say a true thing will recognize.