Poem - "When Father Prays"

When Father prays he doesn’t use

            The words the preacher does;

There’s different things for different days,

            But mostly it’s for us.

When father prays the house is still,

            His voice is slow and deep,

We shut our eyes, the clock ticks loud,

            So quite we must keep.

He prays that we may be good boys,

            And later on good men;

And soon we squirm, and think we won’t

            Have any quarrels again.

You’d never think, to look at Dad,

            He once had tempers, too

I guess if father needs to pray,

            We youngsters surely do.

Sometimes the prayer gets very long

            And hard to understand.

And then I wiggle up quite close,

            And let him hold my hand.

I can’t remember all of it,

            I’m little yet, you see;

But one thing I cannot forget,

            My father prays for me!

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