Have you ever felt the unique connection between a mother and her son?
The relationship between mothers and sons is filled with love, support, and shared memories, and poetry beautifully captures these emotions.
Here are 10 endearing poems that celebrate this special connection, each one resonating with heartfelt sentiments and reflecting the deep love mothers have for their sons.
Let’s get started!
My favorite poem for a son from mothers
#1 “Love Me—I Love You” by Christina G. Rossetti
Love me — I love you,
Love me, my baby;
Sing it high, sing it low,
Sing it as it may be.
Mother’s arms under you,
Her eyes above you;
Sing it high, sing it low,
Love me — I love you.
This poem is special to me because it captures the deep love between a mother and her son.
The way it talks about a mother’s arms and her caring gaze makes me feel warm and safe.
Truly, maternal love has touched us in more ways that we can think of and has shaped us to who we are today.
9 more poems for a son from mothers
#2″Lullaby of an Infant Chief” by Sir Walter Scott
Oh, hush thee, my babie, thy sire was a knight,
Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright;
The woods and the glens from the tower which we see,
They all are belonging, dear babie, to thee.
Oh, fear not the bugle, though loudly it blows,
It calls but the warders that guard thy repose;
Their bows would be bended, their blades would be red,
Ere the step of a foeman draws near to thy bed.
Oh, hush thee, my babie, the time will soon come,
When thy sleep shall be broken by trumpet and drum;
Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may,
For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.
#3 “To Any Reader” by Robert Louis Stevenson
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.
#4 “Lullaby” by Christina G. Rossetti
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Flowers are closed and lambs are sleeping;
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Stars are up, the moon is peeping;
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
While the birds are silence keeping,
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Sleep, my baby, fall a-sleeping,
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
#5 “To My Son” by John Drinkwater
(AGED SIXTEEN)
Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream,
Promise of yet unrisen day,
Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem
To take such cares and courage for your way,
As some year yet we may.
As some year yet, when you, my son to be,
Look out on life, and turn to go,
And I, grown grey, shall wish you well, and see
Myself imprinted as but she could know
To make amendment so.
I see you then, your sixteen years alight
With limbs all true and golden hair,
And you, unborn, I will, this April night,
Tell of the faith and honour you must wear
For love, whose light you bear.
Beauty you have; as, mothered so, could face
Or limbs or hair be otherwise?
Years gone, dear boy, there was a virgin grace
Worth Homer’s laurel under western skies
To wander and devise.
Beauty you have. Cherish it as divine,
Wash it with dews of diligence,
Not vainly, but because it is the sign
Of inward light, the spirit’s excellence
Made visible to sense.
Athlete be you; strong runner to the goal,
Glad though the game be lost or won:
Fleet limbs that chronicle a fleeter soul,
In every winter valiantly to run,
Till the last race be done.
Love wisdom that is suited in a rhyme,
And be in all your learning known
Old minstrels chanting out of faded time,
Since he who counts all years gone by alone
Makes any year his own.
And when one day you are a lover too,
Come back to her who bore you, dear,
Tell out your tale; you shall the better woo
For every word that from her lips you hear,
For she made love most clear.
Most clear for him who sits beside you now;
There was a certain frost that fell
Before its time upon a summer bough,,
And how at last that reckoning was well,
She for your love shall tell.
Labour to build your house, but ever keep
That greater garden fresh in mind,
That England with its bird-song buried deep
In cool great woods where chivalry can find
The province of its kind.
Be great or little your inheritance,
Know there shall number in that dower
No treasure from the treasuries of chance
So rare as that you came the perfect flower
Of love’s most perfect hour.
Go now, my son. Be all I might have been.
(Ask her. She knows, and none but she.)
Her beauty and her wisdom weathered clean
Some part of me in you, that you might be
Her own eternity.
#6 “The Son” by Alfred Lichtenstein
Mother, don’t hold me,
Mother, your caress hurts me,
See through my face,
How I glow and wane.
Give the last kiss. Let me go.
Send a prayer after me.
That I broke your life,
Mother, forgive me.
#7 “Son” by Robert William Service
He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he’d the best of his life to live;
And I’d loved him so, and I’m old, I’m old; and he’s all I had to give.
Ah yes, he was proud and swift and gay, but oh how my eyes were dim!
With the sun in his heart he went away, but he took the sun with him.
For look! How the leaves are falling now, and the winter won’t be long. . . .
Oh boy, my boy with the sunny brow, and the lips of love and of song!
How we used to sit at the day’s sweet end, we two by the firelight’s gleam,
And we’d drift to the Valley of Let’s Pretend, on the beautiful river of Dream.
Oh dear little heart! All wealth untold would I gladly, gladly pay
Could I just for a moment closely hold that golden head to my grey.
For I gaze in the fire, and I’m seeing there a child, and he waves to me;
And I run and I hold him up in the air, and he laughs and shouts with glee;
A little bundle of love and mirth, crying: “Come, Mumsie dear!”
Ah me! If he called from the ends of the earth I know that my heart would hear.
. . . . .
Yet the thought comes thrilling through all my pain: how worthier could he die?
Yea, a loss like that is a glorious gain, and pitiful proud am I.
For Peace must be bought with blood and tears, and the boys of our hearts must pay;
And so in our joy of the after-years, let us bless them every day.
And though I know there’s a hasty grave with a poor little cross at its head,
And the gold of his youth he so gladly gave, yet to me he’ll never be dead.
And the sun in my Devon lane will be gay, and my boy will be with me still,
So I’m finding the heart to smile and say: “Oh God, if it be Thy Will!”
#8 “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare;
But all the time
I’se been a’climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark,
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back;
Don’t you sit down on the steps,
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard;
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
#9 “The Bee” by Christina G. Rossetti
What does the bee do?
Bring home honey.
And what does Father do?
Bring home money.
And what does Mother do?
Lay out the money.
And what does baby do?
Eat up the honey.
#10 “If—” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!