Fatherless.
A
vacant
chair ;1
No loving smile to greet me sitting there,2
No deep expressive eyes,3
My image I could trace in their clear gaze,4
No sympathizing breast to lean my head :5
All these surroundings echo, “ Father’s dead.”6
An aching heart,7
Bursting with grief, no one to heal the smart,8
No loving hands to press9
My fingers in a tight and fond caress ;10
My life is crushed, the link that bound it fed
:11
These feelings tell me that my father’s dead.12
A tear-filled eye,13
No father’s hand to wipe those tears away ;14
Ah, no ! that hand is cold,15
And powerless those arms that did enfold ;16
My streaming tears, ved eyes, and heavy lid17
Tell me too plainly that my father’s dead.18
A smother’d sigh19
I try to stifle ere it should betray—20
So sensitive the heart,21
It cannot brook the cold world’s cruel sport—22
I hide away, betrayal is my dread ;23
No one will sympathize now father’s dead.24
An empty space,25
A void in my rent heart my feelings trace,26
A yearning sympathy.27
Oh, Father God, fill Thou this void for me ;28
With Thy pure love fill me, Thou living Bread,29
Be Father, God, my all, now father’s dead.30