The Way I Treated Father [A Bush Song]
I WORKED with father in the bush
At splitting rails and palings.
He never was unkind to me,
Although he “had his failings:”
And now his grave is old and green,
And now at times I’m rather
Inclined to think ’twas very mean
The way I treated father.
The mother had for years been dead,
And Dad and I and Stumpy
Were living in a little shed—
What bushmen call a humpy;
And now I think when day began,
And it was cold and chilly,
’Twas mean to see a grey old man
Get up and boil the billy.
And though my lazy limbs were stiff;
And though ’twas winter weather.
And though my eyes were shut as if
The lids were glued together,
I think ’twas mean to lie in bed;
I think that I was silly,
Because I growled if father said,
“Git up and bile the billy!”
I didn’t help the cooking much
For I was always “tired”—
’Twas strange that I could eat with such
An appetite as I had;
But now I mind I never growled
When father shouted, “Willie!
It’s gittin’ on for dinnertime;
Go home and bile the hilly.”
His grave is growing old and green
And things have altered rather;
But still I think ’twas mighty mean
The way I treated father.
He left a tidy sum to me,
But I’d give all the money
To hear him say, “Will you get up
And bile the billy, Sonny?”
poem by Henry Lawson
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Related quotes
Where's My Billy Goat Gone To?
'Twas a birthday gift Miss Posie had
When she was nine, and twenty:
Not of gold -- Oh, no! -- nor gem, nor pearl,
Tho' he who gave had plenty.
'Twas a gift she took so much to heart,
Her neighbors thought her silly;
'Twas a B-A-B-Y (Baby) Goat,
A snow-white Baby Billy!
Pretty little Billy, Billy -- Oh!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
Take my home! Take my farm!
Yes, me too (if you want to);
But tell me! tell me!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
Pretty little Billy, Billy -- Oh!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
When she tried to teach him how to read,
Twas only "baa" he'd utter;
As she coaxed him then with cake and cream,
He'd slyly turn to butt her.
Yet he taught himself a thousand tricks,
And many a curious caper;
He would clamber to her chimney top,
And dine there on brown paper.
When the winter came she bought him shoes,
And flannel red she ordered
For a Sunday suit, with trousers cut
Four-legged and embroidered
On the steeple soon in tatters hung,
They set the parson snarling;
And he called that goat Be-el-ze-bub --
The one that she called Darling.
Pretty little Billy, Billy -- Oh!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
He was fond of roaming on the rocks,
With workmen in the quarry;
And if there he found their luncheon pails,
Not he but they were sorry.
For he raised aloft his iron brow,
Despite the foreman's clamor;
And the pails, he crushed them one by one,
As with a blacksmith's hammer.
Pretty little Billy, Billy -- Oh!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
Then for pails replaced and pails concealed
Each morning he went searching,
Till at last he found a shining prize,
Upon a boulder perching.
Had he read its label, "Dynamite!"
He might have known his blunder;
But he gave it one tremendous blow,
And then came peals of thunder!
Pretty little Billy, Billy -- Oh!
Where's my Billy Goat gone to?
poem by Henry Clay Work
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Father Boy
Oh Father Boy, Oh Father Boy
You didn’t see the signs
You didn’t hear a thing did you
Oh Father Boy, my dear
You didn’t see, you didn’t look, you didn’t listen either
You didn’t try to understand
You didn’t take the time
You weren’t a Father, Father Boy, you weren’t a Father, Father.
Oh Father Boy, Father Boy
When a Father has a Boy
To be a Father, Father see
You have to see the Boy
The Boy inside the Father
And the Father in the Boy
But Father Boy, Oh Father Boy
You just didn’t pay attention
For a Boy to be a Father, Father
He cannot be a Father Boy.
(Previously published in Megaera, #4, Fall 2000)
poem by Laurence Overmire
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November's Chill
For 'twas in November's month
the change of guards took place
the month my heart fell to sleep
For 'twas in that darken time
our Love slowly faded away
and in passing, our words were few.
And I am left lonely an' oh so cold.....
For 'twas in November's month
we became two ships in passing
entering port's harbour at separate times
For 'twas in that lonely state
two hearts screamed of Love
and the sheets never warmed again.
And I am left lonely an' oh so cold.......
For 'twas in Novembers month
we tasted Love once again
and like the first time I know home
For 'twas in that lonely bed
separately we lay our heads
yet in dream, you are near as am I
No longer left lonely an' oh so cold...........
poem by Geoff Warden
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Billy Of One Hand
His left hand severed just below the elbow
And the nickname for him 'Billy of one hand'
And he still feels quite angry with his father
And why this should be not hard to understand.
It happened when Billy was just four years old
The day his father took him to the zoo
He wandered towards a cage his dad not looking
And an angry tiger bit his hand in two.
But Billy will put no blame on the tiger
A tiger just wild animal he say
And for what happened to me I must blame my father
I see my hand and hate him every day.
I watched him as a young boy beat my mother
'Thanks be to god from us he went away'
I can't remember any good about him
And only darkest memories of him stay.
He left my mum to live with his new lover
To cheat and domineer to him seemed fair
Ten years or maybe more since I've last seen him
And where he live I do not know or care.
'Billy of one hand' his given nickname
And the worst day of his life was at the zoo
He strayed off whilst his father wasn't looking
And an angry tiger bit his hand in two.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Father Of Night
Father of night, father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and father of rain.
Father of day, father of night,
Father of black, father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.
Father of grain, father of wheat,
Father of cold and father of heat,
Father of air and father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Bread-Knife Ballad
A little child was sitting Up on her mother's knee
And down down her cheeks the bitter tears did flow.
And as I sadly listened I heard this tender plea,
'Twas uttered in a voice so soft and low.
"Not guilty" said the Jury And the Judge said "Set her free,
But remember it must not occur again.
And next time you must listen to you little daughter's plea,"
Then all the Court did join in this refrain.
Chorus:
"Please Mother don't stab Father with the BREAD-KNIFE,
Remember 'twas a gift when you were wed.
But if you must stab Father with the BREAD-KNIFE,
Please Mother use another for the BREAD."
poem by Robert William Service
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I Had No Need
I had no need to be awake.
'Twas better in my bed.
The thought of facing life without him
was a thought better dead.
I had no need to open my eyes.
'Twas better not to see.
The thought of seeing the sun without him
was devastating to me.
I had no need to know the time.
'Twas better that time slip away.
The thought of time lingering now
is endless time each day.
There are no needs that now are mine.
'Twas a time I had them all.
We woke, we saw and knew the time,
now too hurtful to recall.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Father, Can you see me?
Can You See Me Father?
Father, can you see me?
Father, can you help me through this night?
Father, are you with me?
I look up at the sky, and wonder why, I feel so alone now...
Father, will you help me?
Im afraid to close my eyes.
Father, can you hear me?
Father, can you see me?
Father, if I sleep now, will you be watching over me this night?
Father, can you hear me?
Father, can you see me?
Father, the world I see is so much larger, than I remember when you were here with me.
Father, can you hear me?
Father, can you see me?
Father, can you help me stand own my own two feet once more?
Father, Im on my knees, looking at the sky, looking for your eyes.
Father, I've lost my way, Lord, I pray for your guidance once more.
Father, what was your will, Lord, it was not mine.
Father, can you hear me?
Father, can you see me?
Father, as I pray for your will, please come and show me the way, dear Lord I pray.
Amen
poem by Rose Rosado
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The Unlucky Apple
'Twas the apple that in Eden
Caused our father's primal fall;
And the Trojan War, remember --
'Twas an apple caused it all.
So for weeks I've hesitated,
You can guess the reason why,
For I want to tell my darling
She's the apple of my eye.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Night of Nights
‘Twas deep; so deep of night,
When I saw what I had seen -
So truly deep of night,
When I went where I had been,
And really deep of night,
When I heard what I had heard:
Perhaps a fox or badger,
Or a sort of night-time bird.
‘Twas late that night of nights,
When something there was there -
So very late that night of nights,
Where that thing was where -
'Twas deep of night of nights,
When it ran to where it ran:
Perhaps a stoat or Billy goat,
Or ghostly little man.
‘Twas in the night of night of nights,
When something scary caused a scare -
So late of night of night of nights,
When something hairy raised my hair -
The deep of night of night of nights…
So don't you wonder what it was?
Well I never really truly saw it -
Why? Because because!
‘Twas in the night of night of night of nights
Oh I've had enough!
Night night.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Night night, night night
Night night, night night
Night night
night
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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To G. C. And R. L.
'TWAS you, or I, or he, or all together,
'Twas one, both, three of them, they know not whether;
This, I believe, between us great or small,
You, I, he, wrote it not--'twas Churchill's all.
poem by Oliver Goldsmith
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A Railroad Eclogue
Father: What brought thee back, lad?
Son: Father! the same feet
As took me brought me back, I warrant ye.
Father: Couldst thou not find the rail?
Son: The deuce himself
Who can find most things, could not find the rail.
Father: Plain as a pike-staff miles and miles it lies.
Son: So they all told me. Pike-staffs in your day
Must have been hugely plainer than just now.
Father: What didst thou ask for?
Son: Ask for? Tewkesbury,
Thro Defford opposite to Breedon-hill.
Father: Right: and they set ye wrong?
Son: Me wrong? not they;
The best among 'em should not set me wrong,
Nor right, nor anything; I'd tell 'em that.
Father: Herefordshire's short horns and shorter wits
Are known in every quarter of the land,
Those blunt, these blunter. Well! no help for it!
Each might do harm if each had more of each . .
Yet even in Herefordshire there are some
Not downright dolts . . before the cider's broacht,
When all are much alike . . yet most could tell
A railroad from a parish or a pike.
How thou couldst miss that railroad puzzles me,
Seeing there lies none other round about.
Son: I found the rails along the whole brook-side
Left of that old stone bridge across yon Avon.
Father: That is the place.
Son: There was a house hard-by,
And past it ran a furnace upon wheels,
Like a mad bull, tail up in air, and horns
So low ye might not see 'em. On it bumpt,
Roaring, as strait as any arrow flits,
As strait, as fast too, ay, and faster went it,
Arid, could it keep its wind up and not crack,
Then woe betide the eggs at Tewkesbury
This market-day, and lambs, and sheep! a score
Of pigs might be made flitches in a trice,
Before they well could knuckle.
Father! Father!
If they were ourn, thou wouldst not chuckle so,
And shake thy sides, and wipe thy eyes, and rub
Thy breeches-knees, like Sunday shoes, at that rate.
Hows'ever. . . .
Father: 'Twas the train, lad, 'twas the train.
Son: May-be: I had no business with a train.
'Go thee by rail,' you told me; 'by the rail
At Defford' . . and didst make a fool of me.
Father: Ay, lad, I did indeed: it was methinks
Some twenty years agone last Martinmas.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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The Good Lord Is Irish
Twas in a wee little kirk
Nestled deep in the heather
Where leprechauns lurk
mid fog and brash weather
Where wee Father Flanagan stood
Attired in black coat and white collar
Aponderin’ evil and good
E’ twas Five foot two and na’ taller
Aponderin’ the warld’
and to how it might end
And how things might unfarl
When tis gone round the bend
“Oh dear Lard, how twillit be when we go?
Twill all be gone, or will yet some linger? ”
To which the Lard replied in voice soft and low
“suure and I’ll show ye my son, just pull my finger.
poem by David Whalen
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Pioneers
They came of bold and roving stock that would not fixed abide;
There were the sons of field and flock since e’er they learned to ride;
We may not hope to see such men in these degenerate years
As those explorers of the bush – the brave old pioneers.
‘Twas they who rode the trackless bush in heat and storm and drought;
‘Twas they that heard the master-word that called them further out;
‘Twas they that followed up the trail the mountain cattle made
And pressed across the mighty range where now their bones are laid.
But now the times are dull and slow, the brave old days are dead
When hardy bushmen started out, and forced their way ahead
By tangled scrub and forests grim towards the unknown west,
And spied the far off promised land from off the ranges’ crest.
Oh! Ye, that sleep in lonely graves by far-off ridge and plain,
We drink to you in silence now as Christmas comes again,
The men who fought the wilderness through rough unsettled years –
The founders of our nation’s life, the brave old pioneers.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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In Prayer to You
Thank you, My Father
For all that You've done for me.
For all that you've done for me...
I thank You, My Father.
Thank you, My Father
For all that You've done for me.
For all that you've done for me...
I thank You, My Father.
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
For all that you've done for me.
In the early morning hours,
When I arise to greet the Sun...
I feel blessed and prepared,
With such gratefulness...
In prayer to You.
This I must do!
And when noon approaches...
No matter what I have done,
Before that time comes...
That may create a disturbance,
I did not invite nor did I make.
I find time to show it is You I appreciate.
In prayer to You.
This I must do!
Whether or not...
Thunder storms roar,
Or rain drops fall to pitter and pat.
Thank you, My Father
For all that You've done for me.
For all that you've done for me...
I thank You, My Father.
And at the oncoming of Sunset...
Not one moment do I forget,
The power of Your presence...
That showers the blessings,
From You I get!
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
Thank You...
Father, Father, Father!
In prayer to You.
This I must do!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Body Of God!
forgive me, i erred,
i thought God contained
in the wind.... but twas
only one breath of infinity!
i thought i saw God
in the starving child's eyes,
but twas only one heartbeat
of compassion!
i thought i heard God
in the cries of the dying
on the battlefields of greed...
but twas human despair!
i thought i found God
down in the homeless shelter,
but twas only the faces
of my brothers and sisters!
so i walked away,
thinking God didnt care....
then a voice startled me...
'but you're my body! '
poem by Eric Cockrell
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William Upson
Air -- "The Major's Only Son"
Come all good people, far and near,
Oh, come and see what you can hear,
It's of a young man, true and brave,
Who is now sleeping in his grave.
Now, William Upson was his name --
If it's not that it's all the same --
He did enlist in the cruel strife,
And it caused him to lose his life.
He was Jesse Upson's eldest son,
His father loved his noble son;
This son was nineteen years of age,
In the rebellion he engaged.
His father said that he might go,
But his dear mother she said no.
"Stay at home, dear Billy," she said,
But oh, she could not turn his head.
For go he would, and go he did --
He would not do as his mother bid,
For he went away down South, there
Where he could not have his mother's care.
He went to Nashville, Tennessee,
There his kind friends he could not see;
He died among strangers, far away,
They knew not where his body lay.
He was taken sick and lived four weeks,
And oh, how his parents weep,
But now they must in sorrow mourn,
Billy has gone to his heaven home.
If his mother could have seen her son,
For she loved him, her darling one,
If she could heard his dying prayer,
It would ease her heart till she met him there.
It would relieved his mother's heart,
To have seen her son from this world depart,
And hear his noble words of love,
As he left this world for that above.
It will relieve his mother's heart,
That her son is laid in our grave yard;
Now she knows that his grave is near,
She will not shed so many tears.
She knows not that it was her son,
His coffin could not be opened --
It might be some one in his place,
For she could not see his noble face.
He enrolled in eighteen sixty-three,
The next day after Christmas eve;
He died in eighteen sixty-four,
Twenty-third of March, as I was told.
poem by Julia A Moore
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The Wise And Good
'O father, I saw at the church as I passed
The populace gathered in numbers so vast
That they couldn't get in; and their voices were low,
And they looked as if suffering terrible woe.'
''Twas the funeral, child, of a gentleman dead
For whom the great heart of humanity bled.'
'What made it bleed, father, for every day
Somebody passes forever away?
Do the newspaper men print a column or more
Of every person whose troubles are o'er?'
'O, no; they could never do that-and indeed,
Though printers might print it, no reader would read.
To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must be borne,
But 'tis only the Wise and the Good that all mourn.'
'That's right, father dear, but how can our eyes
Distinguish in dead men the Good and the Wise?'
'That's easy enough to the stupidest mind:
They're poor, and in dying leave nothing behind.'
'Seest thou in mine eye, father, anything green?
And takest thy son for a gaping marine?
Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and the Good
Who are poor and lamented to babes in the wood.'
And that horrible youth as I hastened away
Was building a wink that affronted the day.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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The Letter My Father Will Never See
if only one last time i could see you. if only one time i could tell you what i think. if only one time i could say what i've been thinking for all these years. if only i could just not care. if only it didn't hurt so much. if only i could say that you dont matter. if only i could tell you. if only one time you'd listen. if only you knew. if only i could tell you your an ass. if only i could say and put into words what you've put me through. if only you were around to say good job.
as a father you have failed. as a father you were never there. as a father you never held me. as a father you never cared. as a father you never gave me praise. as a father you never brushed my hair. as a father you didn't teach me about life. as a father you didn't teach me how to care. as a father you never showed me love. as a a father you you let me cower in the corner. as a father you scared the hell out of me every night of the week. as a father you came home drunk. as a father you didn't put me to bed. as a father you never gave me a hug as a father you were my worst night. however, for some reason i cant fathom your my father. and for the same reason i cant fathom how you earned the title when being a father was one thing that you never were and dont seem to want to be.
‘father”:
'A FATHER IS SOMEONE WHO'S THERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU NEED HIM
A FATHER NEVER LETS YOU DOWN
A FATHER IS SOMEONE THERE TO HUG YOU WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG
A FATHER IS THERE TO DRY UP THE TEARS
A FATHER IS THERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO
A FATHER IS'NT SOMEONE WHO LEAVES THE MOTHER WHEN HE FINDS OUT SHE'S PERGANT
A FATHER IS'NT SOMEONE WHO DENYS THEIR OWN CHILD
A FATHER IS'NT SOMEONE WHO LEAVES YOU LEFT BEHIND
A FATHER IS'NT SOMEONE WHO SAYS ONE THING TO ONE PERSON THEN SAYS ANOTHER THING TO SOMEONE ELSE
A FATHER IS’NT WHAT I SEE IN YOU”
poem by Yeslin Salazar
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