30 Heartfelt Poems About Parents That Capture Love and Sacrifice
Parents play an irreplaceable role in our lives, offering love, guidance, and endless support. Whether through their small daily sacrifices or the wisdom they share, their impact shapes who we become. Poems about parents beautifully capture the deep emotions we feel but sometimes struggle to express.
These poems give voice to the gratitude, love, and admiration we hold for the people who have been there through it all. Whether you’re looking to reflect on your own relationship with your parents or want to share something meaningful with them, these poems can serve as a heartfelt reminder of their lasting importance.
Poems Celebrating Mothers
Mothers have a unique way of nurturing, loving, and guiding their children through life. These poems celebrate the profound bond between a mother and child, honoring the endless sacrifices and unconditional love that mothers give. Whether you want to express gratitude or simply reflect on the role of a mother, these poems beautifully capture the essence of maternal love.
1. “To My Mother” By Robert Louis Stevenson
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
2. “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.
3. “Sonnets Are Full of Love” By Christina Rossetti
Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come.
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.
4. “Mother O’ Mine” By Rudyard Kipling
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
5. “The Mother” By Padraig Pearse
I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing.
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho’ I grudge them not,
I weary, weary of the long sorrow—
And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.
6. “My Mother” By Ann Taylor
Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
When sleep forsook my open eye,
Who was it sung sweet hushaby,
And rocked me that I should not cry?
My Mother.
Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.
7. “Rock Me to Sleep” By Elizabeth Akers Allen
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep—
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
8. “Mother” By Lola Ridge
Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.
You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.
9. “Mother’s Love” By Helen Steiner Rice
A Mother’s love is something
that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendored miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God’s tender guiding hand.
10. “Mothers Are the Gardeners” By Nicholas Gordon
Mothers are the gardeners
Of wind-blown wild flowers.
They water them with happy tears,
Happy with them many years,
Even as the hours
Ring with sweet, sad melodies
Sighing through their bowers.
Poems Honoring Fathers
Fathers often provide strength, wisdom, and protection, guiding us through life’s challenges with quiet love and steadfast support. These poems honor the deep bond between father and child, recognizing the dedication and care that fathers give. From life lessons to heartfelt memories, these poems pay tribute to the love and guidance that fathers offer throughout our lives.
1. “My Papa’s Waltz” By Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
2. “Only a Dad” By Edgar Albert Guest
Only a dad, with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come, and to hear his voice.
Only a dad, with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more.
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad, but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
3. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” By Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
4. “Father” By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’
There seems to be no monument of stone
Erected to his honor and his worth;
Though in the hearts of children he lives on
From one generation to another, and they pass
To others, not of kin, his loving thought,
And simple truths that grew to be a part
Of life itself.
5. “A Boy and His Dad” By Edgar Guest
A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman’s way.
I fancy I hear them talking there
In an open boat, and the speech is fair.
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who’s with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for one minute could take his place.
Which is happier, man or boy?
The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he’s finding out, to his heart’s delight,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim;
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.
A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
Builders of life’s companionship!
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life’s truths from my father’s lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips.
6. “My Father” By Yehuda Amichai
The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,
and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.
7. “Father” By Edgar Albert Guest
My father knows the proper way
The nation should be run;
He tells us children every day
Just what should now be done.
He knows the way to fix the trusts,
He has a simple plan;
But if the furnace needs repairs,
We have to hire a man.
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There’s nothing that he cannot do,
He knows no word like “fail.”
“Our confidence” he would restore,
Of that there is no doubt;
But if there is a chair to mend,
We have to send it out.
All public questions that arise,
He settles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,
But grabs it while it’s hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;
But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.
It almost makes him sick to read
The things law-makers say;
Why, father’s just the man they need,
He never goes astray.
All wars he’d very quickly end,
As fast as I can write it;
But when a neighbor starts a fuss,
‘Tis mother has to fight it.
In conversation father can
Do many wondrous things;
He’s built upon a wiser plan
Than presidents or kings.
He knows the ins and outs of each
And every deep transaction;
We look to him for theories,
But look to ma for action.
8. “The Gift” By Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
9. “Those Winter Sundays” By Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
10. “Dad” By Karen K. Boyer
He never looks for praises.
He’s never one to boast.
He just goes on quietly working
For those he loves the most.
His dreams are seldom spoken.
His wants are very few,
And most of the time his worries
Will go unspoken too.
He’s there… A firm foundation
Through all our storms of life,
A sturdy hand to hold to
In times of stress and strife.
A true friend we can turn to
When times are good or bad.
One of our greatest blessings,
The man that we call Dad.
Short and Simple Poems for Parents
Sometimes, the simplest words can have the most profound impact. These short and simple poems for parents capture love, appreciation, and the deep connection between parent and child in just a few lines. Whether you’re looking for something to share with your parents on a special occasion or just want to express your feelings, these poems are perfect for the job.
1. “A Parent’s Love” By Anonymous
A parent’s love is always near,
To dry your eyes and calm your fear.
They guide you when you’re feeling lost,
And never count the heavy cost.
2. “Love in Their Eyes” By Anonymous
You see their love in little things,
In all the joy that caring brings.
A hug, a smile, a helping hand,
Their love is what helps you stand.
3. “My Guiding Light” By Anonymous
You’ve been my guiding light each day,
And shown me how to find my way.
Through ups and downs, you’ve stood by me,
And helped me grow, so happily.
4. “Thank You for Being You” By Anonymous
You’ve given me more than I can say,
In your own gentle, caring way.
So thank you, Mom and Dad, for all you do—
I’m so blessed to have parents like you.
5. “What I Learned From You” By Anonymous
You taught me lessons big and small,
With love and patience through it all.
For every time you dried my tears,
I thank you now, through all my years.
6. “To My Parents” By Anonymous
To my parents, with love sincere,
Thank you for always being here.
Your guidance, strength, and love so true,
Have shaped the person I’ve grown into.
7. “Parents”
They tuck you in bed,
And they get up at dawn,
And they pack your lunch for school.
They answer your questions
About fish and frogs,
And whether or not the moon is full.
8. “Thank You, Mom and Dad” By Anonymous
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all you’ve done,
For making each day brighter than the sun.
Your love and care mean everything to me,
I’m so grateful for our family.
9. “Parents” By Anonymous
They tuck you in bed,
And they get up at dawn,
And they pack your lunch for school.
They answer your questions
About fish and frogs,
And whether or not the moon is full.
10. “Thank You, Mom and Dad” By Anonymous
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all you’ve done,
For making each day brighter than the sun.
Your love and care mean everything to me,
I’m so grateful for our family.
