The Mother of God
The Mother of God - meaning Summary
Maternal Awe and Terror
The speaker confronts motherhood as a blend of sacred wonder and violent fear. Yeats frames pregnancy and nursing with cosmic images—"fallen star," "Heavens in my womb"—yet contrasts this with memories of ordinary domestic life. Love here is not gentle but a threefold terror that physically and spiritually transforms the mother, stopping her heart and making her hair rise. The poem registers ambivalence: reverence for creation alongside the helplessness and dread it brings.
Read Complete AnalysesThe threefold terror of love; a fallen flare Through the hollow of an ear; Wings beating about the room; The terror of all terrors that I bore The Heavens in my womb. Had I not found content among the shows Every common woman knows, Chimney corner, garden walk, Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes And gather all the talk? What is this flesh I purchased with my pains, This fallen star my milk sustains, This love that makes my heart's blood stop Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones And bids my hair stand up?
Feel free to be first to leave comment.