by Laura Barber
To gie ane fash. –
Welcome! My bonie, sweet, wee Dochter!
Tho’ ye come here a wee unsought for;
And tho’ your comin I hae fought for,
Baith Kirk and Queir;
Yet by my faith, ye’re no unwrought for,
That I shall swear!
Wee image o’ my bonie Betty,
As fatherly I kiss and daut thee,
As dear and near my heart I set thee,
Wi’ as gude will,
As a’ the Priests had seen me get thee
That ’s out o’ h–. –
Wean child; Mischanter mishap; daunton subdue; Tyta informal name for father; kintra clatter country gossip; feckless worthless; daut fondle
Sweet fruit o’ monie a merry dint,
My funny toil is no a’ tint;
Tho’ ye come to the warld asklent,
Which fools may scoff at,
In my last plack your part ’s be in ’t,
The better half o’t. –
Tho’ I should be the waur bestead,
Tho ’s be as braw and bienly clad,
And thy young years as nicely bred
Wi’ education,
As any brat o’ Wedlock’s bed,
In a’ thy station. –
Lord grant that thou may ay inherit
Thy Mither’s looks an’ gracefu’ merit;
An’ thy poor, worthless Daddie’s spirit,
Without his failins!
’Twad please me mair to see thee heir it
Than stocked mailins!
For if thou be, what I wad hae thee,
And tak the counsel I shall gie thee,
I’ll never rue my trouble wi’ thee,
The cost nor shame o’t,
But be a loving Father to thee,
And brag the name o’t. –
tint lost; asklent on the side; plack coin; waur bestead worse placed; braw finely; bienly warmly; mailins smallholdings
STEPHEN SPENDER
To My Daughter
Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger,
My daughter, as we walk together now,
All my life I’ll feel a ring invisibly
Circle this bone with shining: when she is grown
Far from today as her eyes are far already.
JAMES JOYCE
On the Beach at Fontana
Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.
From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.
Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!
Trieste, 1914
GWEN HARWOOD
In the Park
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt.
Someone she loved once passes by – too late
to feign indifference to that casual nod.
‘How nice,’ et cetera. ‘Time holds great surprises.’
From his neat head unquestionably rises
a small balloon… ‘but for the grace of God…’
They stand awhile in flickering light, rehearsing
the children’s names and birthdays. ‘It’s so sweet
to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive,’
she says to his departing smile. Then, nursing
the youngest child, sits staring at her feet.
To the wind she says, ‘They have eaten me alive.’
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Toys
My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells
And two French copper coins, ranged there with
careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood,
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’
CHARLES LAMB
Parental Recollections
A child’s a plaything for an hour;
Its pretty tricks we try
For that or for a longer space;
Then tire, and lay it by.
But I knew one that to itself
All seasons could control;
That would have mocked the sense of pain
Out of a grievëd soul.
Thou straggler into loving arms,
Young climber up of knees,
When I forget thy thousand ways,
Then life and all shall cease.
FLEUR ADCOCK
For a Five-year-old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
Into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
That it would be unkind to leave it there:
It might crawl to the floor; we must take care
That no one squashes it. You understand,
And carry it outside, with careful hand,
To eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
Your gentleness is moulded still by words
From me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
From me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
Your closest relatives, and who purveyed
The harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
And we are kind to snails.
ROBIN ROBERTSON
New Gravity
Treading through the half-light of ivy
and headstone, I see you in the distance
as I’m telling our daughter
about this place, this whole business:
a sister about to be born,
how a life’s new gravity suspends in water.
Under the oak, the fallen leaves
are pieces of the tree’s jigsaw;
by your father’s grave you are pressing acorns
into the shadows to seed.
BEN JONSON
On My First Son
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father, now. For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,
A
nd, if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say, Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
PEGGY CARR
Flight of the Firstborn
He streaks past his sixteenth year
small island life stretched tight
across his shoulders
his strides rehearsing city blocks
college brochures
airline schedules
stream excitedly through his
newly competent hands
his goodbyes like blurred neon
on a morning suddenly gone wet
I’m left stranded
on a tiny patch of time
still reaching
to wipe the cereal from his smile
ANNE BRADSTREET
In Reference to Her Children, 23 June, 1659
I had eight birds hatched in one nest,
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.
I nursed them up with pain and care,
Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;
Chief of the brood then took his flight
To regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send,
Till he return, or I do end:
Leave not thy nest, thy dam and sire,
Fly back and sing amidst this choir.
My second bird did take her flight,
And with her mate flew out of sight;
Southward they both their course did bend,
And seasons twain they there did spend,
Till after blown by southern gales,
They norward steered with filled sails.
A prettier bird was no where seen,
Along the beach among the treen.
I have a third of colour white,
On whom I placed no small delight;
Coupled with mate loving and true,
Hath also bid her dam adieu;
And where Aurora first appears,
She now hath perched to spend her years.
One to the academy flew
To chat among that learned crew;
Ambition moves still in his breast
That he might chant above the rest,
Striving for more than to do well,
That nightingales he might excel.
My fifth, whose down is yet scarce gone,
Is ’mongst the shrubs and bushes flown,
And as his wings increase in strength,
On higher boughs he’ll perch at length.
My other three still with me nest,
Until they’re grown, then as the rest,
Or here or there they’ll take their flight,
As is ordained, so shall they light.
If birds could weep, then would my tears
Let others know what are my fears
Lest this my brood some harm should catch,
And be surprised for want of watch,
Whilst pecking corn and void of care,
They fall un’wares in fowler’s snare,
Or whilst on trees they sit and sing,
Some untoward boy at them do fling,
Or whilst allured with bell and glass,
The net be spread, and caught, alas.
Or lest by lime-twigs they be foiled,
Or by some greedy hawks be spoiled.
O would my young, ye saw my breast,
And knew what thoughts there sadly rest,
Great was my pain when I you bred,
Great was my care when I you fed,
Long did I keep you soft and warm,
And with my wings kept off all harm,
My cares are more and fears than ever,
My throbs such now as ’fore were never.
Alas, my birds, you wisdom want,
Of perils you are ignorant;
Oft times in grass, on trees, in flight,
Sore accidents on you may light.
O to your safety have an eye,
So happy may you live and die.
Meanwhile my days in tunes I’ll spend,
Till my weak lays with me shall end.
In shady woods I’ll sit and sing,
And things that past to mind I’ll bring.
Once young and pleasant, as are you,
But former toys (no joys) adieu.
My age I will not once lament,
But sing, my time so near is spent.
And from the top bough take my flight
Into a country beyond sight,
Where old ones instantly grow young,
And there with seraphims set song;
No seasons cold, nor storms they see;
But spring lasts to eternity.
When each of you shall in your nest
Among your young ones take your rest,
In chirping language, oft them tell,
You had a dam that loved you well,
That did what could be done for young,
And nursed you up till you were strong,
And ’fore she once would let you fly,
She showed you joy and misery;
Taught what was good, and what was ill,
What would save life, and what would kill.
Thus gone, amongst you I may live,
And dead, yet speak, and counsel give:
Farewell, my birds, farewell adieu,
I happy am, if well with you.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
Danse Russe
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees, –
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
‘I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!’
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades, –
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
My house, I say. But hark to the sunny doves
That make my roof the arena of their loves,
That gyre about the gable all day long
And fill the chimneys with their murmurous song:
Our house, they say; and mine, the cat declares
And spreads his golden fleece upon the chairs;
And mine the dog, and rises stiff with wrath
If any alien foot profane the path.
So too the buck that trimmed my terraces,
Our whilome gardener, called the garden his;
Who now, deposed, surveys my plain abode
And his late kingdom, only from the road.
MICHAEL ONDAATJE
The Strange Case
My dog’s assumed my alter ego.
Has taken over – walks the house
phallus hanging wealthy and raw
in front of guests, nuzzling
head up skirts
while I direct my mandarin mood.
Last week driving the baby sitter home.
She, unaware dog sat in the dark back seat,
talked on about the kids’ behaviour.
On Huron Street the dog leaned forward
and licked her ear.
The car going 40 miles an hour
she seemed more amazed
at my driving ability
than my indiscretion.
It was only the dog I said.
Oh she said.
Me interpreting her reply all the way home.
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br /> DAVID CONSTANTINE
Don’t jump off the roof, Dad…
I see the amplified mouths of my little ones
And dear old Betty beseeching me with a trowel.
I am the breadwinner, they want me down of course.
I expect they have telephoned the fire brigade.
They have misinterpreted my whizzing arms:
I am not losing my balance nor fighting wasps
Nor waving hello nor signalling for help.
These are my props and I am revving up.
From here I have pity on the whole estate.
The homegoing lollipop lady regards me with
amazement.
I shall be on the news. Lovely Mrs Pemberton
Will clutch Mr Pemberton and cry: It’s him!
Ladies, I am not bandy, it is the footing I must keep.
My run-up along the ridge-tiles will be inelegant.
But after lift-off, breasting the balmy wind
And when I bear westwards and have the wind in
my tail
Then what a shot I shall make, going for the big sun,
Over the flowering cherries and the weeping willows,
Beating along Acacia Avenue with a purpose
Towards the park and the ornamental lake.
ROBERT BROWNING
Love in a Life
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her –
Next time, herself! – not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune –
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.