Infant joys: The best poems about babies

I have never been much of a Blakean – a certain ginger-haired young man of small stature is my long-dead poet crush of choice, as I've said in the past – but after I was moved repeatedly to tears by his poem Infant Joy following the birth of my daughter, I'm considering reconsidering my allegiance.

Of course I'd read the poem before, but I'd been largely untouched by it – seen it as a bit soppy, really. But buried amid the sea of pink which swept over us after Meredith's arrival was a book of readings for births and christenings from her grandparents, and I started flicking through it.

I made it past George MacDonald's The Baby ("Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss? / Three angels gave me at once a kiss") and Christina Rossetti's I Know A Baby ("'Cuddle and love me, cuddle and love me,' / Crows the mouth of coral pink") unscathed – yep, despite my heightened hormones, they were still sentimental goo. But then along came Infant Joy, and it hit me smack in my new motherhood, had me weeping uncontrollably. Three months on I'm considerably less emotional, but reading it again now is bringing tears to my eyes regardless – there's just something heart-jerkingly perfect about "I am but two days old ... I happy am,/ Joy is my name." (I am not so shaken by Infant Sorrow, although the "piping loud" is certainly true...)

The anthology had to be put out of my sight for a while in an attempt to keep the weeping at bay, but once I'd recovered a bit I started dipping into it again. Unimpressed by Thom Gunn's Baby Song ("Padded and jolly I would ride / The perfect comfort of her inside") and Margaret Fishback's Love Affair ("Some day he'll think me rather silly, / But now he loves me willy-nilly"), I was pierced again by the "tiny antagonist" of Anne Stevenson's The Victory, and by Don Paterson's Waking with Russell.

Stevenson's Poem for a Daughter is also wonderful – "Certainly I've never had you / as you still have me, Caroline" – but in truth, these are the gems amid a sea of slushiness. Even I, fond mother as I am, roll my eyes at "Tell me, what is half so sweet / As a baby's tiny feet" (thanks, Edgar A Guest). So my challenge to you is to see if you can find a poem which will make me cry again. There's no prize, just the satisfaction of making a grown woman weep. Go on, do your worst. I promise I'll be honest about when the tears start to flow ...