To My Son

(AGED SIXTEEN)

Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream,
    Promise of yet unrisen day,
Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem
    To take such cares and courage for your way,
    As some year yet we may.

As some year yet, when you, my son to be,
    Look out on life, and turn to go,
And I, grown grey, shall wish you well, and see
    Myself imprinted as but she could know
    To make amendment so.

I see you then, your sixteen years alight
    With limbs all true and golden hair,
And you, unborn, I will, this April night,
    Tell of the faith and honour you must wear
    For love, whose light you bear.

Beauty you have; as, mothered so, could face
    Or limbs or hair be otherwise?
Years gone, dear boy, there was a virgin grace
    Worth Homer's laurel under western skies
    To wander and devise.

Beauty you have. Cherish it as divine,
    Wash it with dews of diligence,
Not vainly, but because it is the sign
    Of inward light, the spirit's excellence
    Made visible to sense.

Athlete be you; strong runner to the goal,
    Glad though the game be lost or won:
Fleet limbs that chronicle a fleeter soul,
    In every winter valiantly to run,
    Till the last race be done.

Love wisdom that is suited in a rhyme,
    And be in all your learning known
Old minstrels chanting out of faded time,
    Since he who counts all years gone by alone
    Makes any year his own.

And when one day you are a lover too,
    Come back to her who bore you, dear,
Tell out your tale; you shall the better woo
    For every word that from her lips you hear,
    For she made love most clear.

Most clear for him who sits beside you now;
    There was a certain frost that fell
Before its time upon a summer bough,,
    And how at last that reckoning was well,
    She for your love shall tell.

Labour to build your house, but ever keep
    That greater garden fresh in mind,
That England with its bird-song buried deep
    In cool great woods where chivalry can find
    The province of its kind.

Be great or little your inheritance,
    Know there shall number in that dower
No treasure from the treasuries of chance
    So rare as that you came the perfect flower
    Of love's most perfect hour.

Go now, my son. Be all I might have been.
    (Ask her. She knows, and none but she.)
Her beauty and her wisdom weathered clean
    Some part of me in you, that you might be
    Her own eternity.

John Drinkwater

John Drinkwater was an influential English poet and dramatist who played a significant role in the early 20th-century literary scene. His best-known works include a series of historical plays about Abraham Lincoln, while his poetry often explored themes of nature and human emotion. Drinkwater was also a prominent figure in the Georgian poetry movement, helping to shape modern English poetry. He contributed to various literary journals and was associated with the Dymock poets.

John Drinkwater

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English

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From babyhood I have known the beauty of earth,
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Now sleeps the land of houses,
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To My Son. [1]

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
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And touch thy father's heart, my Boy!


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And thou canst lisp a father's name -
Ah, William, were thine own the same, -
No self-reproach - but, let me cease -
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!


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Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger's breast;
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, -
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!


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W...

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Her Eyes Are Wild

I

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

II

"Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I pray thee have no fear of me;
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My lovely baby! thou shalt be:
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I cannot work thee any woe.

III

"A fire was once within my brain;
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Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day;
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On The Receipt Of My Mothers Picture Out Of Norfolk, The Gift Of My Cousin, Ann Bodham.

O that those lips had language! Life has passd
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The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Times tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
O welcome guest, though unexpected here:
Who bidst me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
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