Classic Poem

As bright as is this day, dear father, be thy life
Henceforth. This day on which a new-made mother watched
You lying in her arms, your little head against
Her breast; and as you lay there, tiny wriggling mass,
Her eyes adored you, softly bright with a great hope.
Her trembling lips smiled ever, as she gazed upon
Your form, and at the first long kiss, the great
Sweet World of Motherhood was opened to her eyes,
A World so beautiful and so divine, the breath
Forsook her lips, and God's grand face lit up the room
All dark before, and wrapped the mother and the babe
In haloed glory fair. Ah, gift of Motherhood!
Ah, precious boon to woman, reaping priceless joy
Through weary pain! Ah, emblem of the Love Divine!
The great white spark of Heaven in a woman's life.
Well might you smile above that your babe form, dear mother
My father, for upon this day you brought into the world
A noble soul, a man that any mother might be
Proud to own. Smile, mother, in the other lands,
Aye laugh for joy. All that Is good in me, all that
I long to be, are due unto thy great true love,
Thy guiding hand, thy sympathy so generous
And great. What were I, father dear, without thy help?
I turn my eyes away before the figure and
Rejoice; and yet your loving hands have moulded me;
No credit, father dear, is due to me; 'twas you
Alone, within my life. This is not all you are
And were to me,—not nearly all. Within the years,
When I was still a child, whose was the eye, that watched
Me night and day? Whose ear was ever ready, kind,
Unto my plaints, and ever ready too, to share my joys?
Whose hand was ever stretched to me, to lead my feet?
Whose voice the last I heard before I closed my eyes
In sleep, and whose the first I heard when I awoke?
It should have been my mother, but it was not so;
And, father dear, the sweetest tribute, that my hand
Can find to lay before your feet this day, is this,
That you have been a gentle mother to your child.