Pleasing Dad

Ragtag Daily Prompt for today is MEMORY LANE

My response will be this trip down memory lane with poet Edgar A Guest. Happy the boy who has felt this way.

Pleasing Dad

When I was but a little lad, not more than two or three,
I noticed in a general way my dad was proud of me.
He liked the little ways I had, the simple things I said;
sometimes he gave me words of praise, sometimes he stroked my head.
And when I’d done a thing worthwhile, the thought that made me glad
was always that I’d done my best, and that would please my dad.

I can look back today and see how proud he used to be
when I’d come home from school and say they’d recommended me.
I didn’t understand it then, for school boys never do,
but in a vague and general way it seems to me I knew
that father took great pride in me, and wanted me to shine,
and that it meant a lot to him when I’d done something fine.

Then one day out of school I went, amid the great world’s hum
an office boy, and father watched each night to see me come.
And I recall how proud he was of me that wondrous day
when I could tell him that, unasked, the firm had raised my pay.
I still can feel that hug he gave; I understand the joy
it meant to him to learn that men were trusting in his boy.

I wonder, will it please my dad? How oft the thought occurs
when I am stumbling on the path, beset with briars and burrs!
He isn’t here to see me now, alone my race I run,
and yet someday I’ll go to him and tell him all I’ve done.
And, oh, I pray that when we meet beyond life’s stormy sea
that he may claim the old-time joy of being proud of me.

From his book, Collected Verse of Edgar A Guest
© 1934 by The Reilly & Lee Company