The Eternal Greeting

What is the welcoming word I hear
When I reach home at the close of day?
"Glad you are with us, daddy, dear?"
Something I'd like to hear you say?
No, it is this, invariably:
"Daddy, what have you got for me?"

"Deep affection," I might reply;
What would it profit if I did?
I might answer: "The price to buy
Clothes and edibles for you, kid."
You would repeat, insistently:
"Daddy, what have you got for me?"

Isn't my Self enough for you?
Doesn't my Presence satisfy?
No, that spelling would never do;
You want Presents, a new supply,
When you inquire so eagerly:
"Daddy, what have you got for me?"

'Twould be much nicer and cheaper, son,
If I were welcome without a toy,
But as I'm not, I must purchase one
And take my reward from your look of joy
When you open the bundle and cry: "O, see!
See what daddy has got for me!"

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Ringgold Wilmer 'Ring' Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on sports figures and the cultural mores of the Jazz Age. Born on March 6, 1885, in Niles, Michigan, he began his career as a journalist but soon gained fame for his humorous and poignant short stories. His works often featured the American slang vernacular and painted an evocative picture of early 20th-century American life. Lardner passed away on September 25, 1933.

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Guess Again

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A Visit From Young Gloom

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His Favorite Role

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Inexpensive Guests

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner, Simple Poetry

English

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The New Plaything

I wonder what your thought will be
And what you'll say and do, sir,
When you come home again and see
What Daddy's got for you, sir.

I wonder if you'll like it, boy,
Or turn away disgusted
(You've often scorned a nice, new toy
For one that's old and busted.)

I wonder if you'll laugh, or cry
And run in fright to mother,
Or just act bored to death, when I
Show you your brand new brother.

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Welcome To Spring

Spring, you are welcome, for you are the friend of
Fathers of all little girlies and chaps.
Spring, you are welcome, for you mean the end of
Bundling them up in their cold-weather wraps.

Breathes there a parent of masculine gender,
One whose young hopeful is seven or less,
Who never has cursed the designer and vender
Of juvenile-out-of-doors-winter-time dress?

Leggings and overcoat, rubbers that squeeze on,
Mittens and sweater a trifle too small;
Not in the lot is one thing you can ease on,
One that's affixed with no trouble at all.

Spring, you are welcome, thrice welcome to father;
Not for your flowers and birds, I'm afraid,
As much as your promised relief from the bother
Of bundling the kid for the daily parade.

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Taste

I can't understand why you pass up the toys
That Santa considered just right for small boys;
I can't understand why you turn up your nose
At dogs, hobby-horses, and treasures like those,
And play a whole hour, sometimes longer than that,
With a thing as prosaic as daddy's old hat.

The tables and shelves have been loaded for you
With volumes of pictures - they're pretty ones, too -
Of birds, beasts, and fishes, and old Mother Goose
Repines in a corner and feels like the deuce,
While you, on the floor, quite contentedly look
At page after page of the telephone book.

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

His Memory

Besides my little son's imagination,
Another thing he has appeals to me
And agitates my envious admiration -
It's his accommodating memory.

An instant after some unlucky stumble
Has floored him and induced a howl of pain,
He's clean forgotten all about his tumble
And violently sets out to romp again.

But if, when I leave home, I say that maybe
I'll get him something nice while I'm away,
It's very safe to bet that Mr. Baby
Will not forget, though I be gone all day.

Ah, would I might lose sight of things unpleasant:
The bills I owe; the work I haven't done.
And only think of future joys and present,
Like the approaching payday, and my son.

Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

The Suicide

    "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
    Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
    And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
    I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
    That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
    With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--
    Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
    As if spent passion were a holiday!
    And now I go.    Nor threat, nor easy vow
    Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
    With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
    Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
    And know not where nor unto whom I go;
    But that thou canst not follow me I know."

    Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
    My thought ran still, until I spake again:<...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

To My Father.

I.

Take of the first fruits, Father, of thy care,
    Wrapped in the fresh leaves of my gratitude
    Late waked for early gifts ill understood;
Claiming in all my harvests rightful share,
Whether with song that mounts the joyful air
    I praise my God; or, in yet deeper mood,
    Sit dumb because I know a speechless good,
Needing no voice, but all the soul for prayer.
    Thou hast been faithful to my highest need;
And I, thy debtor, ever, evermore,
Shall never feel the grateful burden sore.
    Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed,
    But for the sense thy living self did breed
That fatherhood is at the great world's core.


II.

All childhood, reverence clothed thee, undefined,
    As for some being of another race;
    A...

George MacDonald