The central idea of "The Courage That My Mother Had" revolves around the speaker's deep admiration for her mother's courage, which she feels has been lost with her mother’s passing. While the speaker possesses a cherished physical heirloom, she longs for the intangible strength and bravery that her mother embodied—qualities she now feels she desperately needs in her own life.
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave! -
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
—“The Courage That My Mother Had,”
Edna St. Vincent Milla
Reread the poem. Look at the details in each stanza and write one to two sentences explaining the central idea of the poem.
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