Any Woman
by Katharine Tynan
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In this poem the speaker is 'Any Woman', a mother who sees herself as the very foundation of her home and family. Through a series of powerful metaphors she declares that she is 'the pillars of the house' and 'the keystone of the arch'; take her away and 'roof and wall / Would fall to ruin'. She is the fire on the hearth, the light of the good sun and the heat that warms the earth, at which the children warm their hands. She is the 'twist that holds together / The children in its sacred ring', the 'knot of love' from which no child strays. She is the whole house 'from floor to roof', she decks the walls, spreads the board, spins the curtains and shakes the down for their beds. She is her family's wall against danger and their door against wind and snow. The poem ends in a prayer to Christ (whom 'a woman laid in a manger'): 'Take me not till the children grow!' The poem celebrates the all-embracing, self-sacrificing power of a woman to hold a family together.
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'Any Woman' by the Irish poet Katharine Tynan presents a mother as the binding force and foundation of her home. The title suggests she is not one particular woman but every woman, a universal figure.
Pillars and keystone
The speaker calls herself 'the pillars of the house' and 'the keystone of the arch', the structural centre without which everything collapses. 'Take me away, and roof and wall / Would fall to ruin me utterly,' she says. She is also the fire upon the hearth, the light of the good sun and the heat that warms the earth, which would 'else were colder than a stone'.
The knot of love
At the mother the children warm their hands; she is their 'light of love alive'. Without her the hearthstone stands cold and the children could not thrive. She is 'the twist that holds together / The children in its sacred ring', their 'knot of love', a tether so close that 'No lost child goes a-wandering'. The image is of a mother who lovingly keeps the family bound and safe.
The whole house, and a prayer
She is 'the house from floor to roof', she decks the walls, spreads the board (table), spins the curtains 'warp and woof' and shakes the down to make their beds. She is her family's wall against all danger and their door against the wind and snow.
The poem closes with a moving prayer to Christ, 'whom a woman laid in a manger': 'Take me not till the children grow!' The mother asks God to spare her life until her children are grown, for they cannot do without her.