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To My Mother by Edgar Allan Poe

Analysis

"To My Mother" is written by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was first published in Flag of Our Union on July 7, 1849. It was later published as "Sonnet to My Mother". The poem is referring to his mother-in-law and aunt Marie Clemm.

Poe says that since Marie Clemm was the mother of his wife Virginia and since his mother died when he was little, he holds her closer to his heart than his own mother.

"To My Mother" is written as one stanza with the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG and is written in iambic-pentameter. It is thus a Shakespearean sonnet.

Poem

To My Mother
By Edgar Allan Poe

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
  The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
  None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-
  You who are more than mother unto me,
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,
  Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
  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.

Published in 1849.

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