Father and Fatherhood

A Father's Prayer

Lord, make me tolerant and wise;
Incline my ears to hear him through;
Let him not stand with downcast eyes,
Fearing to trust me and be true.
Instruct me so that I may know
The way my son and I should go.


When he shall err, as once did I,
Or boyhood folly bids him stray,
Let me not into anger fly
And drive the good in him away.
Teach me to win his trust, that he
Shall keep no secret hid from me.


Lord, strengthen me that I may be .
A fit example for my son.
Grant he may never hear or see
A shameful deed that I have done.
However sorely I am tried,
Let me not undermine his pride.


In spite of years and temples gray,
Still let my spirit beat with joy;
Teach me to share in all his play
And be a comrade with my boy.
Wherever we may chance to be,
Let him find happiness with me.


Lord, as his father, now I pray
For manhood's strength and counsel wise;
Let me deal justly, day by day,
In all that fatherhood implies.
To be his father, keep me fit;
Let me not play the hypocrite!

The Fathers
Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: ‘My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur’s getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’
‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck!
My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there’s truth in what we hear,
The Huns intend to ask for more
Before they bolt across the Rhine.’
I watched them toddle through the door—
These impotent old friends of mine.

The Actor

Enthusiastic was the crowd
That hailed him with delight;
The wine was bright, the laughter loud
And glorious the night.
But when at dawn he drove away
With echo of their cheer,
To where his little daughter lay,
Then he knew-- Fear.

How strangely still the house! He crept
On tip-toe to the bed;
And there she lay as if she slept
With candles at her head.
Her mother died to give her birth,
An angel child was she;
To him the dearest one on earth . . .
How could it be?

'O God! If she could only live,'
He thought with bitter pain,
'How gladly, gladly would I give
My glory and my gain.
I have created many a part,
And many a triumph known;
Yet here is one with breaking heart
I play alone.'

Beside the hush of her his breath
Came with a sobbing sigh.
He babbled: 'Sweet, you play at death . . .
'Tis I who die.'

Jeptha's Daughter

Since our Country, our God Oh,
my Sire!
Demand that thy Daughter expire;
Since thy triumph was brought by thy vowStrike
the bosom that's bared for thee now!


And the voice of my mourning is o'er,
And the mountains behold me no more:
If the hand that I love lay me low,
There cannot be pain in the blow!


And of this, oh, my Father! be sureThat
the blood of thy child is as pure
As the blessing I beg ere it flow,
And the last thought that soothes me below.


Though the virgins of Salem lament,
Be the judge and the hero unbent!
I have won the great battle for thee,
And my Father and Country are free!


When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd,
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd,
Let my memory still be thy pride,
And forget not I smiled as I died!

my father moved through dooms of love

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height


this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm


newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots


and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.


Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin


joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice


keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely)stood my father's dream


his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.


Scorning the pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain


septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is


proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,



so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark


his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.


My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)


then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold


giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am


though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath


and nothing quite so least as truth
-i say though hate were why men breathebecause
my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Father


My father knows the proper way
The nation should be run;
He tells us children every day
Just what should now be done.
He knows the way to fix the trusts,
He has a simple plan;
But if the furnace needs repairs,
We have to hire a man.
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There's nothing that he cannot do,
He knows no word like "fail."
"Our confidence" he would restore,
Of that there is no doubt;
But if there is a chair to mend,
We have to send it out.

All public questions that arise,
He settles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,


But grabs it while it's hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;


But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.


It almost makes him sick to read
The things law-makers say;
Why, father's just the man they need,
He never goes astray.
All wars he'd very quickly end,
As fast as I can write it;
But when a neighbor starts a fuss,
'Tis mother has to fight it.

In conversation father can
Do many wondrous things;
He's built upon a wiser plan
Than presidents or kings.
He knows the ins and outs of each
And every deep transaction;
We look to him for theories,
But look to ma for action.

His Boys

"I'm going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don't make any noise.
There's Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away.
I've fixed the note to your collar, you've got to get back to my Boys,
You've got to get back to warn 'em before it's the break of day."


The order came to go forward to a trench-line traced on the map;
I knew the brass-hats had blundered, I knew and I told 'em so;
I knew if I did as they ordered I would tumble into a trap,
And I tried to explain, but the answer came like a pistol: "Go."


Then I thought of the Boys I commanded -- I always called them "my Boys" --
The men of my own recruiting, the lads of my countryside;
Tested in many a battle, I knew their sorrows and joys,
And I loved them all like a father, with more than a father's pride.


To march my Boys to a shambles as soon as the dawn of day;
To see them helplessly slaughtered, if all that I guessed was true;
My Boys that trusted me blindly, I thought and I tried to pray,
And then I arose and I muttered: "It's either them or it's you."


I rose and I donned my rain-coat; I buckled my helmet tight.
I remember you watched me, Billy, as I took my cane in my hand;
I vaulted over the sandbags into the pitchy night,
Into the pitted valley that served us as No Man's Land.


I strode out over the hollow of hate and havoc and death,
From the heights the guns were angry, with a vengeful snarling of steel;
And once in a moment of stillness I heard hard panting breath,
And I turned . . . it was you, old rascal, following hard on my heel.


I fancy I cursed you, Billy; but not so much as I ought!
And so we went forward together, till we came to the valley rim,
And then a star-shell sputtered . . . it was even worse than I thought,
For the trench they told me to move in was packed with Boche to the brim.


They saw me too, and they got me; they peppered me till I fell;
And there I scribbled my message with my life-blood ebbing away;
"Now, Billy, you fat old duffer, you've got to get back like hell;
And get them to cancel that order before it's the dawn of day.


"Billy, old boy, I love you, I kiss your shiny black nose;
Now, home there. . . . Hurry, you devil, or I'll cut you to ribands. . . . See . . ."
Poor brute! he's off! and I'm dying. . . . I go as a soldier goes.
I'm happy. My Boys, God bless 'em! . . . It had to be them or me.

God Gave To Me A Child In Part
GOD gave to me a child in part,
Yet wholly gave the father's heart:
Child of my soul, O whither now,
Unborn, unmothered, goest thou?
You came, you went, and no man wist;
Hapless, my child, no breast you kist;
On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb,
Nor knew the kindly feel of home.
My voice may reach you, O my dear-
A father's voice perhaps the child may hear;
And, pitying, you may turn your view
On that poor father whom you never knew.
Alas! alone he sits, who then,
Immortal among mortal men,
Sat hand in hand with love, and all day through
With your dear mother wondered over you.

My Father-in-Law and I

MY father-in-law is a careworn man,
And a silent man is he;
But he summons a smile as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
The sign we make with a silent shake
That speaks of the days gone by—
Like men who meet at a funeral—
My father-in-law and I.


My father-in-law is a sober man
(And a virtuous man, I think);
But we spare a shilling whenever we can,
And we both drop in for a drink.
Our pints they fill, and we say, “Ah, well!”
With the sound of the world-old sigh—
Like the drink that comes after a funeral—
My father-in-law and I.


My father-in-law is a kindly man—
A domestic man is he.
He tries to look cheerful as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
But we stand and think till the second drink
In a silence that might imply
That we’d both get over a funeral,
My father-in-law and I.

To The Earl Of Doncaster

SEE, sir, how, as the sun's hot masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Nile's dirty slime,
In me your fatherly yet lusty rhyme
—For these songs are their fruits—have wrought the same.
But though th' engend'ring force from which they came
Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
Seven to be born at once ; I send as yet
But six ; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your judgment, which the same degree
Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,
As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,
Or as elixir, to change them to gold.
You are that alchemist, which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.

Soliloquy in Circles
Being a father
Is quite a bother.
You are as free as air
With time to spare,
You're a fiscal rocket
With change in your pocket,
And then one morn
A child is born.
Your life has been runcible,
Irresponsible,
Like an arrow or javelin
You've been constantly travelin'.
But mostly, I daresay,
Without a chaise percée,
To which by comparison
Nothing's embarison.
But all children matures,
Maybe even yours.
You improve them mentally
And straighten them dentally,
They grow tall as a lancer
And ask questions you can't answer,
And supply you with data
About how everybody else wears lipstick sooner and stays up later,
And if they are popular,
The phone they monopular.
They scorn the dominion
Of their parent's opinion,
They're no longer corralable
Once they find that you're fallible
But after you've raised them and educated them and gowned them,
They just take their little fingers and wrap you around them.
Being a father Is quite a bother,
But I like it, rather.