To My Mother
Because I feel that, in the heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of ‘mother’ —
Therefore by that sweet name I long have called you —
You, who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,
In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
My mother — my own mother — who died early —
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew;
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
Edgar Allan Poe
Originally published in 1849