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by
Kobayashi Issa
With my father
With my father
I would watch dawn
over green fields.
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by
Kobayashi Issa
Last time, I think
Last time, I think,
I'll brush the flies
from my father's face.
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by
Emily Dickinson
How slow the Wind --
How slow the Wind --
how slow the sea --
how late their Fathers be!
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by
Robert Burns
48. Epitaph on a Henpecked Squire
AS father Adam first was fool’d,
(A case that’s still too common,)
Here lies man a woman ruled,
The devil ruled the woman.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Luck is not chance --
Luck is not chance --
It's Toil --
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned --
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned Coin
We spurned --
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by
David Lehman
April 26
When my father
Said mein Fehler
I thought it meant
"I'm a failure"
which was my error
which is what
mein Fehler means
in German which
is what my parents
spoke at home
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by
Emily Dickinson
"Lethe" in my flower,
"Lethe" in my flower,
Of which they who drink
In the fadeless orchards
Hear the bobolink!
Merely flake or petal
As the Eye beholds
Jupiter! my father!
I perceive the rose!
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by
Emily Dickinson
Good night, because we must,
Good night, because we must,
How intricate the dust!
I would go, to know!
Oh incognito!
Saucy, Saucy Seraph
To elude me so!
Father! they won't tell me,
Won't you tell them to?
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by
Emily Dickinson
Lightly stepped a yellow star
Lightly stepped a yellow star
To its lofty place --
Loosed the Moon her silver hat
From her lustral Face --
All of Evening softly lit
As an Astral Hall --
Father, I observed to Heaven,
You are punctual.
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by
Emily Dickinson
I never lost as much but twice
I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod.
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!
Angels -- twice descending
Reimbursed my store --
Burglar! Banker -- Father!
I am poor once more!
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by
Louise Gluck
First Memory
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was--
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Far from Love the Heavenly Father
Far from Love the Heavenly Father
Leads the Chosen Child,
Oftener through Realm of Briar
Than the Meadow mild.
Oftener by the Claw of Dragon
Than the Hand of Friend
Guides the Little One predestined
To the Native Land.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Given in Marriage unto Thee
Given in Marriage unto Thee
Oh thou Celestial Host --
Bride of the Father and the Son
Bride of the Holy Ghost.
Other Betrothal shall dissolve --
Wedlock of Will, decay --
Only the Keeper of this Ring
Conquer Mortality --
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by
Stevie Smith
Never Again
Never again will I weep
And wring my hands
And beat my head against the wall
Because
Me nolentem fata trahunt
But
When I have had enough
I will arise
And go unto my Father
And I will say to Him:
Father, I have had enough.
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by
Emily Dickinson
"Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
"Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband --
Though to trust us -- seems to us
More respectful -- "We are Dust" --
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity --
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by
Stanley Kunitz
An Old Cracked Tune
My name is Solomon Levi,
the desert is my home,
my mother's breast was thorny,
and father I had none.
The sands whispered, Be separate,
the stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road.
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by
Emily Dickinson
You left me -- Sire -- two Legacies --
You left me -- Sire -- two Legacies --
A Legacy of Love
A Heavenly Father would suffice
Had He the offer of --
You left me Boundaries of Pain --
Capacious as the Sea --
Between Eternity and Time --
Your Consciousness -- and Me --
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by
Donald Hall
White Apples
when my father had been dead a week
I woke with his voice in my ear
I sat up in bed
and held my breath
and stared at the pale closed door
white apples and the taste of stone
if he called again
I would put on my coat and galoshes
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by
William Butler Yeats
Father And Child
She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Mountain sat upon the Plain
The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair --
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere --
The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire --
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor --
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by
Robert William Service
The Sceptic
My Father Christmas passed away
When I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.
Yet not in either lies the curse:
The hell of it's because
I don't know which loss hurt the worse --
My God or Santa Claus.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.
The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.
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by
Robert Burns
420. Lines of John M’Murdo, Esq.
BLEST be M’Murdo to his latest day!
No envious cloud o’ercast his evening ray;
No wrinkle, furrow’d by the hand of care,
Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair!
O may no son the father’s honour stain,
Nor ever daughter give the mother pain!
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by
Friedrich von Schiller
The Iliad
Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers
Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive!
Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother's own feature,
'Tis thy features it bears,--Nature,--thy features eterne!
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by
Carl Sandburg
Blacklisted
WHY shall I keep the old name?
What is a name anywhere anyway?
A name is a cheap thing all fathers and mothers leave
each child:
A job is a job and I want to live, so
Why does God Almighty or anybody else care whether
I take a new name to go by?
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