Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOSEPH'S LAMENT, by HARRY HIBBARD KEMP


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JOSEPH'S LAMENT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My boy, my boy, and art thou dead?
Last Line: My murdered boy! ... Woe, woe is me!
Subject(s): Death; Fathers & Sons; Murder; Trees; Dead, The


MY boy, my boy, and art thou dead?
Would they had stretched these limbs instead
Upon this bitter leafless tree!
But thou wouldst pay small heed to me!
Yet hadst thou given me heed, my boy,
Thou'dst known a workman's quiet joy:
To sit in the declining sun
At peace when the day's stint is done—
A wife had sat at thy right hand:
A cot, a little space of land
With one gray olive tree before,
And a seat by a vine-clad door
Had blessed thee, happy at thy trade,
And a small son had climbed and played
With broken prattle on thy knee—
But, son, thy soul was deaf to me ...
And so thou hang'st where all may see ...
O shameful death! O shameless tree!
My murdered boy! ... Woe, woe is me!





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