Song of the Day - 8th February

Today's Song of the Day is a setting of a poem entitled "My Mother's Hand" by Hattie Howard (1860-1920).

A child's relationship with their mother is undefinable. It's the first love any of us knows, formed before we are even born. It's a complex love, threaded through with strands of discipline to ensure we grow up to be the best person we can be, and, if we are lucky, it survives our turbulent teenage years unscathed to mature into a strong bond of deep affection.

Hattie Howard's poem is written from the haunting perspective of an adult remembering those golden days of childhood whilst contemplating her mother's face and hand "encoffined, still, and white."

Get the music for this song for free - find out how here.

My Mother's Hand

By Hattie Howard

My head is aching, and I wish

That I could feel tonight

One well-remembered, tender touch

That used to comfort me so much,

And put distress to flight.

There's not a soothing anodyne

Or sedative I know,

Such potency can ever hold

As that which lovingly controlled

My spirit long ago.

How oft my burning cheek as if

By Zephyrus was fanned,

And nothing interdicted pain

Or seemed to make me well again

So quick as mother's hand.

'Tis years and years since it was laid,

In her own gentle way,

On tangled curls of brown and jet

Above the downy coverlet

'Neath which the children lay.

As bright as blessed sunlight ray

The past comes back to me;

Her fingers turn the sacred page

For a little group of tender age

Who gather at her knee.

And when those hands together clasped

Devout and still were we;

To whom it seemed God then and there

Must surely answer such a prayer,

For none could pray as she.

O buried love with her that passed

Into the Silent Land!

O haunting vision of the night!

I see, encoffined, still, and white,

A mother's face and hand.