Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HEAVENLY FATHER AT EVENING, by FRANZ WERFEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HEAVENLY FATHER AT EVENING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When was my first beginning
Last Line: In my long, long white beard.


When was my first beginning,
When will my labors be past,
Children, when shall I be winning
To the end, to rest at last?

When, shy and soft and quaking,
Your bedtime voices sue,
Though your foolish hearts be aching,
Children, I envy you.

There is one who heeds your weeping,
Friends are not far to seek,
Your mother's hand, while you are sleeping,
Is quietly stroking your cheek.

And if you are grown-up people,
You hold out your arms, to the sweet
Remembrance of childhood—to steeple
And garden and house and street.

I had no rooms to skip through,
No playground to which to come,
The memories I could trip through
Are eternal and old and dumb.

I never stepped, unbounded,
Into the path of fate,
To whom shall I pray, being wounded,
By thousands of planets confounded,
For whom shall my helplessness wait?

Now earth's little lights are dying,
You lie huddled, by slumber ensphered,
Now, alone, I am crying
In my long, long white beard.





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