Dad Poems

The Affectionate Father

And now the lonely father bends
Beneath the weight of years,
His children, best of all his friends,
Confirm their love with tears.

- Hannah Flagg Gould
A Name in the Sand

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by Eliza Wolcott

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Full Text

If love and friendship e'er is found,
'Tis in a father's breast;
His fond paternal prayers abound,
And his devotion's blest.

His children near him side by side,
With smiles of gladness play;
While innocence and love preside,
To crown the happy day.

But who can tell a mother's love,
When her devotions rise,
Her infant's lips are taught to move,
To gain the heavenly prize.

She lives to see her children blest,
To crown her for her care,
She dies with truth and grace possess'd
She enters heaven with prayer.

And now the lonely father bends
Beneath the weight of years,
His children, best of all his friends,
Confirm their love with tears.

They view the hand that toil'd for them,
That kind paternal hand'
They hear his pray'rful accents, when
He joins the sleeping band.

An aged father's love and care,
Has almost told the tale,
Howe'er possess'd with love that's rare,
That strength with life must fail.

But when dear Julia's father sleeps
Beneath the peaceful sod,
Hope will revive while memory weeps,
And trust he's with his God.

My Father

My father was "an honest man—
The noblest work of God!

- Richard Coe
My Father

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by Richard Coe

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Full Text

My father was a parent kind,
And loved his children dear;
And when his hour of death drew nigh
We shed full many a tear;
We wept—but not in bitterness,
For well we knew that he
Enjoy'd throughout the shadow-vale
The smile of Deity!

He had a pleasant word for all
Who came within his way,
A smile was ever on his face—
A kind, benignant ray.
Where'er he roam'd he made him friends
Of high or low degree;
The only birthright that he own'd
Was sterling honesty!

Misfortune's heavy shadow fell
Upon his later years,
We mark'd with grief his failing strength,
And turn'd to hide our tears:
At length an angel messenger
Commission'd from the sky,
Approach'd my father with a smile,
And bore his soul on high!

We laid him in his quiet grave,
A rural, soft retreat,
And turn'd our faces from the spot,
With slow, unwilling feet!
We raised no graven monument
Above his humble sod;—
My father was "an honest man—
The noblest work of God!

To Father

by Mary E. Tucker

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Full Text

My father! when I saw thee last,
Thy noble, manly form,
Was unbent by the cares of time —
Unshattered by life's storm.

The raven hair around thy brow
Was scarcely tinged with gray —
While the bright lustre of thine eye
Denied old age's sway.

Oft in my dreams I see thy face,
As 'twas when last we met;
If we should never meet again,
Thy smile I'll ne'er forget.

My father, years have passed since then;
Aye, stern, heart-breaking years;
And we have each been made to feel
Life's sorrows, and life's tears.

Now, I am in my womanhood —
They say, life's glorious page;
And, father, I regret to think,
That you have reached old age.

Grieve not, grieve not, for broken buds,
They'll open in the sky;
In bower of celestial light,
They'll bloom, and never die.

Dear father, thou hast ever been
To me, thy orphan child,
A father and a mother too,
Kind, thoughtful, just and mild.

Then grant me, father, but this boon,
Then will thy child be blest —
Let me watch o'er thy latest years,
And lay thee down to rest.

My Father

by Paul Hamilton Hayne

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Full Text

My father! in the vague, mysterious past,
My boyish thoughts have wandered o'er and o'er,
To thy lone g s te upon a distant shore.
The wanderer oi the waters, still at last.

Never in childhood have I blithely sprung
To catch my father's voice, or climb his knee;
He was a constant pilgrim of the sea.
And died upon it when his boy was young.

He perished not in conflict nor in flame,
No laurel garland rests upon his tomb;
Yet in stern duty's path he met his doom;
A life heroic, though unwed to fame!

First in vague depths of fancy, scarce defined,
Love limned his wavering likeness on my soul,
Till through slow growths it waxed a perfect whole
Of clear conceptions, brightening heart and mind.

His careless bearing and his face,
His cordial eye; his firm-knit, stalwart form,
Fitted to breast the fight, the wreck, the storm;
The sailor's frankness and the grace.

In dreams, in dreams we've mingled, and a swell
Of feeling mightier for the eyes' eclipse,
The music of a blest Apocalypse,
Thrilled through my spirit with its mystic spell:

Ah, then! ofttimes a sadder scene will rise,
A gallant vessel through the mist bound day,
Lifting her spectral spars above the bay,
Gloomily swayed against gray glimmering skies.

O'er the dim billows thundering, peals a boom
Of the deep gun that bursteth as a knell.
When the brave tender to the brave farewell—
And strong arms bear a comrade to the tomb.

*****

The opened sod: a sorrowing band beside—
One rattling roll of musketry, and then,
A man no more among his fellow-men,
Darkness his chamber, and the earth his bride,

My father sleeps in peace; perchance more blest
Than some he left to mourn him, and to know
The bitter blight of an enduring woe,
Longing (how oft!) with him to be at rest.

Father and I

by Ruby Archer

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Full Text

Father and I were gypsies.—
We tried to lose our way
Among the woodland mystery,
When we'd a holiday.

My hand about his finger,
We followed brook and dell.
No need to voice our ecstasy—
The robins told it well.

His love I took for granted,
Owned every dear caress,
Nor dreame'd of how a little girl
Would feel when fatherless.

Now I, poor lonely gypsey,
Roam wood and hill and blue;
But no one loves them all with me
As Father used to do.

A Boy and His Dad

by Edgar A. Guest

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Full Text

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman's way.

I fancy I hear them talking there
In an open boat, and the speech is fair.
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who's with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for one minute could take his place.

Which is happier, man or boy?
The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he's finding out, to his heart's delight,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim;
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
Builders of life's companionship!
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life's truths from my father's lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips.

Example

by Edgar A. Guest

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Full Text

Perhaps the victory shall not come to me,
Perhaps I shall not reach the goal I seek,
It may be at the last I shall be weak
And falter as the promised land I see;
Yet I must try for it and strive to be
All that a conqueror is. On to the peak,
Must be my call—this way lies victory!
Boy, take my hand and hear me when I speak.

There is the goal. In honor make the fight.
I may not reach it but, my boy, you can.
Cling to your faith and work with all your might,
Some day the world shall hail you as a man.
And when at last shall come your happy day,
Enough for me that I have shown the way.

The Boy's Ideal

by Edgar A. Guest

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Full Text

I must be fit for a child to play with,
Fit for a youngster to walk away with;
Fit for his trust and fit to be
Ready to take him upon my knee;
Whether I win or I lose my fight,
I must be fit for my boy at night.

I must be fit for a child to come to,
Speech there is that I must be dumb to;
I must be fit for his eyes to see,
He must find nothing of shame in me;
Whatever I make of myself, I must
Square to my boy's unfaltering trust.

I must be fit for a child to follow,
Scorning the places where loose men wallow;
Knowing how much he shall learn from me,
I must be fair as I'd have him be;
I must come home to him, day by day,
Clean as the morning I went away.

I must be fit for a child's glad greeting,
His are eyes that there is no cheating;
He must behold me in every test,
Not at my worst, but my very best;
He must be proud when my life is done
To have men know that he is my son.

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,

– John Howard Payne
Home, Sweet Home!

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Only a Dad

by Edgar A. Guest

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Full Text

Only a dad, with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame,
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come, and to hear his voice.

Only a dad, with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more.
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent, whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen,
Only a dad, but the best of men.

Many Weep

by Gigi Ryan

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Full Text

My Father God, in Heaven great,
We remembrance keep
Of fathers You have given us;
Today, though, many weep.

Countless tears right now are shed
For fathers in the grave.
Some the dirt atop still fresh
When life this week upgave.

Others in mind of fathers whom
Abandoned years ago.
Children who are missing them;
Their longing won’t let go.

Some have fathers who have failed
And brought unmeasured pain.
But their children love them still,
And love is ne’er in vain.

Then I think of men whose child
Left the fold of sheep.
These fathers’ hearts afflicted yet;
With prayer, they vigil keep.

What about the man who wants
To loving father be,
And share his overflowing heart
With one upon his knee?

Fatherhood has broken been
And touched on earth by curse;
But God His work continues still;
All will in time reverse.

On this day of joy and pain,
Hope is not all lost.
God in heaven holds the tears
Of those in suffering tossed.

Saints who ache for father love
Have One who fills their cup;
A Father faithful, kind and wise,
With love that won’t give up.

My Father God, in Heaven great,
Who His children keep
Hold tightly those today who mourn,
For Lord, so many weep.

Dad Poems

Table of Contents

The Affectionate Father

My Father

To Father

My Father

Father and I

A Boy and His Dad

Example

The Boy's Ideal

Only a Dad

Many Weep

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