Few people realize that Edgar Guest was a gift to the United States from England, his natal town being Birmingham. This may explain how he acheives the ...unequalled mastery of the language he exhibits in his deeply sentimental "working man" poetry:


Only a Dad

              1 Only a dad with a tired face,
              2 Coming home from the daily race,
              3 Bringing little of gold or fame
              4 To show how well he has played the game;
              5 But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
              6 To see him come and to hear his voice.

              7 Only a dad with a brood of four,
              8 One of ten million men or more
              9 Plodding along in the daily strife,
            10 Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
            11 With never a whimper of pain or hate,
            12 For the sake of those who at home await.

            13 Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
            14 Merely one of the surging crowd,
            15 Toiling, striving from day to day,
            16 Facing whatever may come his way,
            17 Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
            18 And bearing it all for the love of them.

            19 Only a dad but he gives his all,
            20 To smooth the way for his children small,
            21 Doing with courage stern and grim
            22 The deeds that his father did for him.
            23 This is the line that for him I pen:
            24 Only a dad, but the best of men.

Makes you proud to be a bourgeois, don't it?


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