I have grown fond of all my wounds and pain,Till they became for me a prayer's sweet gain.
O Mother, your affliction reached and toreMy tortured heart with all it wished and more.
O malady, be gentle with the nameOf motherhood—the treasure life may claim.
In her eternity itself takes form,A mirror of the spirit, chaste and warm.
My precious mother, brow that nations bow,Before whose dignity all foreheads vow.
In her stillness and her voice I findA wound whose weeping haunts my heart and mind.
Could be her healing star has wandered wide,Roamed all her world, then lost its radiant guide?
The path to her high tower went astray—When shall its light illumine us again?
What shall I say of her whose soul draws nearUnto her God, in worship pure and clear?
Who glorifies the Lord throughout the night,Then prostrates when the morning brings its light.
She calls a healing God; my heart prolongsHer prayer—and rarely do the tears and songs
Of trembling lips in supplication meet.In her dear daughter lies her hope complete;
For her she hides complaint when daughter's faceAppears—yet life for her has lost its grace.
As though within her anguish she atonesFor sinners' faults through suffering's harsh tones.
How many verses from my love I woveFor her, whose purity my verse could prove!
Since childhood she inspired the poet's art,Whose glory living spirits shall impart.
She lived confined within her household's gate,Like springs that quench the thirsty wanderer's fate.
O Mother, now your daughter speaks to youOf love for God—her soul refreshed and true.
I watered spirit from her dew's embrace,And love from passion overflowed its place.
And you today are my sole avenueTo what the Lord forbade—yet I pursue.
When Satan whispered temptingly to me,You were my refuge from his injury.
Others may shrink from groans of pain and woe,But mine to me were calls to prayer's glow.
That very moaning seemed to my fond earLike flute-songs praising God in meadows clear.
This moaning, as it were a hymn divine,A reed-flute's worship in the open shrine.
The mother gladdens at her sons' increase,As though in sons alone life finds release.
She strives to marry off her growing boy,But marriage—what does marriage bring of joy?
The young man's life is cruelly overthrownWhen wife usurps the sceptre of his own.
She pours the poison of her spite as wine,And curses sinners with a curse malign.
She wrongs him through her reckless, heedless ways,And cries: 'Curse be the mother-in-law's days!'
By God, had I not been charged from aboveWith duty to the Lord and filial love,
I have in life a message to proclaim,Whose charter is to curb the tyrant's claim.
For you I spread the heavens' golden plate,And earth with sigh on sigh of grief and weight.
I bared the heart's deep wound and cried aloud:For whom was this tormented breast bestowed?
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