The Mother
Padraic (or Patrick) Pearse is a controversial figure because of his role in the Easter Rising of 1916 and other activities on behalf of Irish nationalism. He also founded schools, was a poet and author, and devout Roman Catholic.
Whatever one thinks of Pearse, it’s hard not to be moved the voice he gives to the pride tinged by sorrw and grief of a mother about to lose her sons to war. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that the poem captures the grief and sorrow of a mother tinged by pride.
Written on the eve of his execution for his role in the Easter Risings and six days of rebellion and great loss of civilian life, the poem probably is written in the voice of his mother as she would lose both of her sons (Pearse’s brother Willie was to be executed a few days later).
A century later, we still have mothers mourning the loss of their sons and daughters to war, mothers wondering if the children they gave to their country will come home. American mothers, Irish mothers, British mothers…and Iraqi mothers and Afghani mothers. Mothers all over the world who bear a worry and grief born of extreme love. And until the day when wars are no more, mothers will bear that weight.
Perhaps not as cheerful as the typical Mother’s Day poem, but a piercingly true element of being a mother nonetheless, and one worth remembering this weekend.
The Mother
I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho’ I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow–And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.
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