Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. Killis Campbell), “To my Mother,” The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Ginn and Company, 1917, p. 133


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[page 133, continued:]

TO MY MOTHER   [[v]]

[[v]]

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,

[[v]]

The angels, whispering to one another,

[[v]]

Can find, among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of “Mother,”

5

[[v]]

[[n]]

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you —

You who are more than mother unto me,

[[v]]

[[n]]

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,

10

Was but the mother of myself; but you

[[v]]

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

[[v]]

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.

(1849)

 


[[Variants]]

[The following variants appear at the bottom of page 133:]

Title Sonnet — To My Mother (F. O. U., L. M.).

1 I feel that: the angels (L. M.).

2 The angels, whispering to: Devoutly singing unto (L. M.).

3 among: amid (L. M.).

5 dear: sweet (F. O. U., L. M.).

7 And fill: Filling (L. M.); Death: God (L. M.).

11 one: dead (L. M.).

12 Are thus more precious than the one I knew (L. M.).

 


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Notes:

None.

 

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[S:0 - KCP, 1917] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - To my Mother (ed. K. Campbell, 1917)