IS THAT your reason? The children? Their future? Tut! blow off the foam of sentimentality and piffle! Look through the depths beneath. Somehow your child had to come and take the risk of being yours: The risk was real... Perhaps you were poor, and his environment dirty and dark: Or you were bad-tempered or lecherous: Or you were the opposite of his nature and would oppose his growth. Now, tell me: what is his future to be? Built on a father who is a lie and evasion? Or strong and true? Is that last not a risk worth taking? Is it not part of the risk of his being born your son? Truly, sparing him pain may be the very way of spoiling his nature: Give a child credit for being as human as you are: Let him share the great fight: He will thank you in the end. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT SUNSET TIME by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR FLANNAN ISLE by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON SHE CAME AND WENT by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE by CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON MORLEY LOVE-LILY by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI QUATRAIN: HERRICK by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 8. OF CONSTANCY by WILLIAM BASSE |