Poem by Mathilde Blind

Motherhood

From out the front of being, undefiled,
   A life hath been upheaved with struggle and pain;
   Safe in her arms a mother holds again
That dearest miracle—a new-born child.
To moans of anguish terrible and wild—
   As shrieks the night-wind through an ill-shut pane—
   Pure heaven succeeds; and after fiery strain
Victorious woman smiles serenely mild.

Yea, shall she not rejoice, shall not her frame
   Thrill with a mystic rapture! At this birth,
The soul now kindled by her vital flame
   May it not prove a gift of priceless worth?
Some saviour of his kind whose starry fame
   Shall bring a brightness to the darkened earth.

1. Internal Firesides
2. Apple-Gathering
3. The Red Sunsets, 1883 (The twilight heavens are flushed with gathering light)
4. The Songs of Summer
5. What Magic Is There

Ella Wilcox Motherhood ("At times I am the mother of the world")

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