I greet you, son, with joy and winter rue: For you the fatted calf, the while I bind Sackcloth against my heart for siring you At sundown and the twilight. Child, you find A sire sure tired of striving with the winds; Climbing Mount Nebo with laborious breath To view the land of promise through blurred lens, Knowing he can not enter, feeling death. And, as old Israel called his dozen sons And placed his withered hands upon each head Ere he was silent with the skeletons In Mamre of the cold, cave-chambered dead, So would I bless you with a dreamer's will: The dream that battles me, may you fulfill. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RAND MCNALLY ATLAS by KAREN SWENSON A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE POLITICAL GREATNESS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE BOOK OF THE LETTER, SELECTION by ABRAHAM ABULAFIA SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 2. THE FLOWER ASLEEP by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 9. OF HUMILITY by WILLIAM BASSE |