POE TRY.
FATHER AND SON.
[" Che in la mente m'e fitta ed or m'accora La cars e bnona imagine paterna Di voi, cpiando net mondo ad ora ad ora M'insegnavate come l'uom s'eterna."
—DANTE.]
I HAD a father; when he was alive,
I did not greatly care his will to please ; I did not know his habit was to strive For me, his son, upon his beaded knees.
My careless eyes found him but commonplace, And thus untreasnred chances passed away Of watching Time—consummate artist !—trace A character like Christ's in "common" clay.
Then he appeared a Philistine, too stiff To sympathise with my superior mind ; But now, when he is dead, it seems as if He were the vision-seer, I the blind.
He knows now all the secrets of the grave Versed in profounder than Hegelian lore ; He wears the crown God gives to those who brave The world's contempt and all its sneers ignore.
And I who could so lightly talk with him, Confronting wisdom with youth's insolence, Would give all that I have to walk with him, And think a great boon won at small expense.
I did not know how fervently he longed In me deep-cherished hopes to realise, Too late I see it now, the love I wronged, Then in my reach, now out of reach, the prize.
Though they are lost, which might have once been won, Rich opportunities I cast away, I trust that even now he sees his son Tracking his footsteps to the land of day.
Then will I tell him what I had to keep Buried within my breast, a life-long woe; And he will say : "My son ! my son ! why weep ?
I have forgiven it so long ago."
C. H. FAURE FIELD.
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