by Alice L. Wood.
Originally published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (Harper & Brothers) vol.120 #719 (Apr 1910).
How strange, now he is gone, that I
Keep thinking of him as he was when young.
I never knew him as a young man. No,
Nor ever thought of him as old.
To me he always stayed the age he was
When as a child I first knew what age meant,
But now my thoughts go back to him in youth,
My father, lying here with snow-white hair.
I see him as the careless little boy
Like that old picture in the roundabout,
The one they said my oldest brother was like—
Playing about Grandfather's woods and lanes,
Or ever any town was here at all;
How much he loved to talk about that time—
Oh, how I wish I'd let him tell me more!
But I had other things to do, I thought.
I see him as a happy college boy
In that old Quaker college years ago:
My quiet care-worn father, deep in "serapes"?
And yet they say he led in all such things.
That old, old man, who came, said so awhile ago.
And then they tell me how he loved to hunt,
And how he once rode better than them all.
My father! Whom I've only known to toil,
His only pleasure being our good times.
How far away his youth has always seemed,
His hopes and dreams, his passion's early fire!
They did not seem so far away—they never seemed at all,
He was just father, never young
To me, nor ever to be old.
But now! O God! How old he looks!
I never dreamed that father was so old.
But when I think how long since he was young,
How long he's been just father toiling for us,
My heart breaks.
These hands—so worn!
This silver hair—When did it turn so white?
O God, wherever he is now,
Let him be young again!