Poetry Month, Day 19, Poems about Fathers

So, I think the theme today is pretty self explanatory. It's Fathers' Day, so some poems about or involving fathers are in order.

On the Beach At Night, Walt Whitman

ON the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter; 
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades. 


From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears; 
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky- shall devour the stars only in
apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge- be patient- watch again another night- the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal- all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall
shine out again, 
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again- they
endure; 
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall
again shine.


Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter? 
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars? 

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,) 
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) 
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, 30
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades. 

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I'm not a huge Whitman fan - as Homer Simpson says, "Leaves of Grass, my ass!" - but I like the image here of a father and daughter on the beach at night, looking up at the stars and such. 

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Father William, Lewis Carroll

'You are old, father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth,' father William replied to his son,
'I feared it would injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old,' said the youth; one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father; 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'

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From Alice in Wonderland, obviously. I'm a great fan of Alice and her adventures, and I particularly like Carroll's pastiches of popular educational poetry.

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Father's Chore, Edgar Allen Guest

My Pa can hit his thumbnail with a hammer and keep still;
He can cut himself while shaving an' not swear;
If a ladder slips beneath him an' he gets a nasty spill
He can smile as though he really didn't care.
But the pan beneath the ice-box- when he goes to empty that- 
Then a sound-proof room the children have to hunt;
For we have a sad few minutes in our very pleasant flat
When the water in it splashes down his front.

My Pa believes his temper should be all the time controlled;
He doesn't rave at every little thing;
When his collar-button underneath the chiffonier has rolled
A snatch of merry ragtime he will sing.
But the pan beneath the ice box- when to empty that he goes- 
As he stoops to drag it out we hear a grunt;
From the kitchen comes a rumble, an' then everybody knows
That he splashed the water in it down his front.

Now the distance from the ice box to the sink's not very far- 
I'm sure it isn't over twenty feet- 
But though very short the journey, it is long enough for Pa
As he travels it disaster grim to meet.
And it's seldom that he makes it without accident, although
In the summer time it is his nightly stunt;
And he says a lot of language that no gentleman should know
When the water in it splashes down his front. 

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We've seen some of Guest's poetry before. Apparently, fathers and fatherhood are some of his favorite topics, I've found seven or eight by him in this vein. I like this one.