Today would have been my mother’s birthday. I’ll light a candle for her today, and I chose this verse from Leaves of Grass in her memory. As always, thank you to Project Gutenberg.
This is an excerpt from the poem called “Proud Music of the Storm.” Most of Whitman’s mother imagery in Leaves of Grass refers to the USA, the Flag, or abstract concepts such as freedom or democracy. This seems to be an exception.
Enjoy the poem, and hug your mother if you are still blessed with her presence.
3 Ah from a little child, Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music, My mother’s voice in lullaby or hymn, (The voice, O tender voices, memory’s loving voices, Last miracle of all, O dearest mother’s, sister’s, voices;) The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav’d corn, The measur’d sea-surf beating on the sand, The twittering bird, the hawk’s sharp scream, The wild-fowl’s notes at night as flying low migrating north or south, The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering trees, the open air camp-meeting, The fiddler in the tavern, the glee, the long-strung sailor-song, The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at dawn.