The Perfect Sonnet for Mother’s Day

James Whistler, Icon of Mother’s Love

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Friday

With Mother’s Day coming up Sunday, here’s one of the best poems I know to honor the occasion. Imagine being eighty years old and receiving this sonnet from your daughter.

Sonnets Are Full of Love
By Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
      Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
   One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
   To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome
   Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come.
And so because you love me, and because
   I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
      Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name:
      In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
   Of time and change and mortal life and death.

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