Motherhood and Politics - Part 2

I first read the little booklet "Blessings on the Hand of Women" by Boyd K. Packer when Isaac was just a newborn baby. A month or so earlier, our neighbor had given us a beautiful rocking bassinet that was much larger than our previous bassinet. So, reading this poem by William Ross Wallace - literally while I was rocking Isaac to sleep - truly inspired me and has helped me through some of the rough "motherhood moments" that come to all mothers from time to time.

Blessing on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother's first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow -
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our natal sod!
Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky -
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

(William Ross Wallace, "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World," in Poems That Live Forever, sel. Hazel Felleman [New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965], 149-50; Quoted in Boyd K. Packer, Blessings on the Hand of Women, [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2006], 3-4).