The Gift of God by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Name: The Gift of God
Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson

A mother feels herself uniquely blessed by the birth of her son and bears her happiness with proud, humble astonishment. She regards him as set apart from ordinary children, almost too holy to call her own or imagine subject to pain, care, and common indignities. In her vision he is already destined for a shining spiritual greatness. Although the people of the town might see little in him beyond smiles and doubts, and crude judgment might diminish his worth, she believes his name will be known throughout the earth. Others may recognize that he could become great through love yet falter when tested for truth; the mother, however, gives him a greatness that centuries could not create through her faith, praise, and plans for his future. She crowns him with gratitude and finds life good in her motherhood. Even if the divine gift in him is less than the gift she feels in being his mother, her dream carries him upward into a vague but splendid fame, amid roses thrown on marble stairs.

By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1897 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Psychological Poetry, Character Study · 392 words

First lines

BLESSED with a joy that only she

Of all alive shall ever know, / She wears a proud humility

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The Gift of God is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1897 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
Date: 1897 CE
Language: English
Genres: Lyric Poetry, Psychological Poetry, Character Study, Religious Poetry, Symbolist Poetry
Length: 392 words
Structure: 1 section, 33 paragraphs
Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)

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Genres

Lyric Poetry — The work is a reflective, emotionally concentrated poem that explores a mother's exalted vision of her son through musical language, imagery, and sustained meditation rather than plot.
Psychological Poetry — It closely examines the mother's idealizing consciousness, showing how love, pride, faith, fear, and projection transform her ordinary child into a figure of imagined greatness.
Character Study — The poem primarily constructs the mother's character through her perceptions and dreams, while the son remains deliberately indistinct, defined by her expectations rather than demonstrated actions.
Religious Poetry — Its title and diction invoke divine favor, anointment, sacrilege, the soul, and 'the Lord,' framing motherhood and maternal devotion in quasi-sacred terms.