This week’s choice marks Mothering Sunday (or Mothers’ Day) and it is “To My Mother” by Christina Rossetti.
To-day’s your natal day;
Sweet flowers I bring:
Mother, accept, I pray
My offering.
- Christina Rossetti (1830—1894)
Poem 430. Mother
To-day’s your natal day;
Sweet flowers I bring:
Mother, accept, I pray
My offering.
And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.
This brief poem simply expresses the love of a child for their mother and although it opens with the mother’s birthday, it applies every day of the year.
Like Rossetti, we bring our mothers gifts on their birthday and on Mother’s Day, whether they be flowers, sweet treats or simply a card, to show that we are grateful to the mother who bore us and raised us and wishing them a long and happy life.
Mother’s Day is a secularisation of the Christian church’s Mothering Sunday: the day on which Christians traditionally returned to their mother church—the one in which they were baptised.
I like it because it is a simple but expressive poem and it makes me think of my mum, who is seldom far from my thoughts at the moment.
There are a few performances of the poem on YouTube, none of which are particularly notable but I have chosen the Eternal Poems one.