Parents hold a special place in our hearts, shaping us with their love, sacrifices, and unwavering support.
As daughters, we often seek meaningful ways to express the depth of our gratitude and affection for them. Poetry can beautifully capture what words often fail to convey.
Here are 10 endearing poems are perfect for celebrating the bond between parents and daughters, offering heartfelt verses that honor their love and influence.
Let’s dive in!
My favorite poem for parents from daughters
#1 “Distant Footsteps” by César Vallejo
My father is sleeping. His noble features
reflect a gentle heart.
How sweet he is;
if anything in him is bitter, it must be me.
There is solitude at home, and prayer,
and there isn’t any news of the children today.
My father wakes up. He considers
the flight into Egypt, the bitter goodbye.
How near he is;
if anything in him is distant, it must be me.
And my mother, who moves through
the orchard, tasting a taste grown tasteless:
how soft she is,
how very wing, how departure, how love.
There is solitude at home, no sound,
no news, no green, no childhood.
And if anything this afternoon is broken,
and is going down and creaking,
it’s two old lanes white and curving,
and my heart is walking along them now.
This poem beautifully captures the bittersweet relationship between children and their parents, balancing admiration, love, and the poignant realization of distance as life changes.
The vivid imagery of a father’s gentle heart and a mother’s soft presence creates a deeply emotional tribute to everything parents embody—love, sacrifice, and enduring connection.
For me, it resonates with anyone who cherishes their parents while reflecting on the passage of time.
9 more poems for parents from daughters
#2 “The Mother’s Kiss” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Love breathed a secret to her listening heart,
And said “Be silent.” Though she guarded it,
And dwelt as one within a world apart,
Yet sun and star seemed by that secret lit.
And where she passed, each whispering wind ablow,
And every little blossom in the sod,
Called joyously to her, “We know, we know,
For are we not the intimates of God?”
Life grew so radiant, and so opulent,
That when her fragile body and her brain
By mortal throes of agony were rent,
She felt a curious rapture in her pain.
Then, after anguish, came the supreme bliss –
They brought the little baby, for her kiss!
#3 “The Father” by Friedrich Schiller
Work as much as thou wilt, alone thou’lt be standing forever,
Till by nature thou’rt joined forcibly on to the whole.
#4 “The Fathers” by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon
Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: “My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur’s getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun.”
“Yes,” wheezed the other, “that’s the luck!
My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there’s truth in what we hear,
The Huns intend to ask for more
Before they bolt across the Rhine.”
I watched them toddle through the door –
These impotent old friends of mine.
#5 “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.
#6 “To My Mother” by William Ernest Henley
Chiming a dream by the way
With ocean’s rapture and roar,
I met a maiden to-day
Walking alone on the shore:
Walking in maiden wise,
Modest and kind and fair,
The freshness of spring in her eyes
And the fulness of spring in her hair.
Cloud-shadow and scudding sun-burst
Were swift on the floor of the sea,
And a mad wind was romping its worst,
But what was their magic to me?
Or the charm of the midsummer skies?
I only saw she was there,
A dream of the sea in her eyes
And the kiss of the sea in her hair.
I watched her vanish in space;
She came where I walked no more;
But something had passed of her grace
To the spell of the wave and the shore;
And now, as the glad stars rise,
She comes to me, rosy and rare,
The delight of the wind in her eyes
And the hand of the wind in her hair.
#7 “To My Mother” by John Le Gay Brereton
Once more the Christian festival is near,
And I, for whom each day repeats all days
Continuously in ecstasy of praise,
Love’s birthday lasting through the unending year,
Am dreaming how the spirit draws me sheer
From farthest wandering in the illusive maze
To that white centre whose creative blaze
Spun me aloft and sets me tremulous here.
And since all heaven is figured in my heart,
As in a dewdrop ere it change and live
There shines the glory of the eternal dome,
Mother, to you the showering meteors dart
Of free affection, fancies fugitive,
And flare, with increasing heat and splendour, home.
#8 “To My Mother” by John Clare
With filial duty I address thee, Mother,
Thou dearest tie which this world’s wealth possesses;
Endearing name! no language owns another
That half the tenderness and love expresses;
The very word itself breathes the affection,
Which heaves the bosom of a luckless child
To thank thee, for that care and that protection,
Which once, where fortune frowns, so sweetly smil’d.
Ah, oft fond memory leaves its pillow’d anguish,
To think when in thy arms my sleep was sound;
And now my startled tear oft views thee languish,
And fain would drop its honey in the wound:
But I am doom’d the sad reverse to see,
Where the worst pain I feel, is loss of helping thee.
#9 “To My Father” by George MacDonald
I.
Take of the first fruits, Father, of thy care,
Wrapped in the fresh leaves of my gratitude
Late waked for early gifts ill understood;
Claiming in all my harvests rightful share,
Whether with song that mounts the joyful air
I praise my God; or, in yet deeper mood,
Sit dumb because I know a speechless good,
Needing no voice, but all the soul for prayer.
Thou hast been faithful to my highest need;
And I, thy debtor, ever, evermore,
Shall never feel the grateful burden sore.
Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed,
But for the sense thy living self did breed
That fatherhood is at the great world’s core.
II.
All childhood, reverence clothed thee, undefined,
As for some being of another race;
Ah! not with it departing–grown apace
As years have brought me manhood’s loftier mind
Able to see thy human life behind–
The same hid heart, the same revealing face–
My own dim contest settling into grace
Of sorrow, strife, and victory combined.
So I beheld my God, in childhood’s morn,
A mist, a darkness, great, and far apart,
Moveless and dim–I scarce could say Thou art:
My manhood came, of joy and sadness born–
Full soon the misty dark, asunder torn,
Revealed man’s glory, God’s great human heart.
#10 “The Orphan” by Jane and Ann Taylor
My father and mother are dead,
Nor friend, nor relation I know;
And now the cold earth is their bed,
And daisies will over them grow.
I cast my eyes into the tomb,
The sight made me bitterly cry;
I said, “And is this the dark room,
Where my father and mother must lie?”
I cast my eyes round me again,
In hopes some protector to see;
Alas! but the search was in vain,
For none had compassion on me.
I cast my eyes up to the sky,
I groan’d, though I said not a word;
Yet God was not deaf to my cry,
The Friend of the fatherless heard.
For since I have trusted his care,
And learn’d on his word to depend,
He has kept me from every snare,
And been my best Father and Friend.