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Classic Poems for Father's Day

Father's Day is a special day where father's are remembered and thanked for everything they have done for us. These great poems written by classical poets shows what enormous thanks father's have been given long before the day was an official holiday.

Menaphon: Sephesta’s Song to her Child

by: Robert Greene (1589)

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
    Mother’s wag, pretty boy,
    Father’s sorrow, father’s joy;
    When thy father first did see
    Such a boy by him and me,
    He was glad, I was woe,
    Fortune changed made him so,
    When he left his pretty boy
    Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
    Streaming tears that never stint,
    Like pearl-drops from a flint,
    Fell by course from his eyes,
    That one another’s place supplies;
    Thus he griev’d in every part,
    Tears of blood fell from his heart,
    When he left his pretty boy,
    Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
    The wanton smil’d, father wept,
    Mother cried, baby leapt;
    More he crow’d, more he cried,
    Nature could not sorrow hide:
    He must go, he must kiss
    Child and mother, baby bless,
    For he left his pretty boy,
    Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee. 

The Child Is Father To the Man

by: Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)

"The child is father to the man."
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
"The child is father to the man."
No; what the poet did write ran,
"The man is father to the child."
"The child is father to the man!"
How can he be? The words are wild.

If--
by: Rudyard Kipling

Anecdote For Fathers
by: William Wordsworth

The Little Boy Lost
by: William Blake

On the Beach at Night
by: Walt Whitman

High from the earth I heard a bird
by: Emily Dickinson

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