After we shower our moms with flowers, love, and gifts on , Father's Day can get put on the backburner when it arrives the next month. Show Dad some extra appreciation this year with these Father's Day poems. If you're looking for a message but can't quite get the words right, let a poet do the heavy lifting. Whether you need a or you're looking for the perfect wishes to tell him in person, these poems are a meaningful route to take.
Fathers Are Wonderful People
By Helen Steiner Rice
Fathers are wonderful people
too little understood,
For somehow Father seems to be
the man who pays the bills,
While Mother binds up little hurts
and nurses all our ills…
And Father struggles daily
to live up to his image
As protector and provider
and hero of the scrimmage…
And perhaps that is the reason
we sometimes get the notion
But if you look inside Dad's heart,
where no one else can see,
You'll find he's sentimental
and as soft as he can be…
But he's so busy every day
in the grueling race of life,
He leaves the sentimental stuff
to his partner and his wife…
But fathers are just wonderful
in a million different ways,
For the only reason Dad aspires
to fortune and success
Is to make the family proud of him
and to bring them happiness…
And like our heavenly Father,
he's a guardian and a guide,
Someone that we can count on
to be always on our side.
A Boy and His Dad
A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman's way.
I fancy I hear them talking there
Which is happier, man or boy?
The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he's finding out, to his heart's delight,
A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
Builders of life's companionship!
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
Father
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him 'Dad.'
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.
He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Now I think of all achievements 'tis the least
To perpetuate the species; it is done
By the insect and the serpent, and the beast.
Father
By Edgar Guest
My father knows the proper way
The nation should be run;
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There's nothing that he cannot do,
He knows no word like "fail."
"Our confidence" he would restore,
All public questions that arise,
He settles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,
But grabs it while it's hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;
But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.
It almost makes him sick to read
In conversation father can
Do many wondrous things;
He's built upon a wiser plan
Than presidents or kings.
To Her Father with Some Verses
By Anne Bradstreet
Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same
Than may your worthy self from whom it came?
Only a Dad
By Edgar Guest
Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad with a brood of four,
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
Only a dad but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
my father moved through dooms of love
By E.E. Cummings
34
my father moved through dooms of love
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is
proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark
his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold
giving to steal and cruel kind,
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all