A Father’s Name, A Monody (1827)
A FATHER’S NAME ;
A MONODY.
By James M. Nack
A Father’s Name! From infant silence first.
Imperfect, when our childish accents burst,
As to the parent knee we fondly clung,
Around him while our little arms were flung,
As we reclin’d our heads upon his breast.
While to his manly brow our lips were prest.
The earliest accent from those lips that came
Was breath’d to bless him with a Father’s Name.
A father’s name! Ah! you who can bestow
That name, not all its value can you know.
Nor with what agony the heart is riven
Of him by whom it can no more be given ;
Too blest yourselves to tell the orphan’s fate,—
His bosom’s void, — his feelings desolate,
To find that none remains from him to claim
What he were blest to give, — A Father’s Name!
A father’s name I and must we to the tomb
Consign it with him? Is there none in whom
We still may claim a father and a friend?
Thou Father of the fatherless! we bend
To Thee, Oh God ! Ours is the orphan’s right,
Which Thou wilt answer, tho’ the world may slight;
Though all beside be deaden’d to the claim,
Our God will not reject a Father’s Name.
A Father’s Name, Oh may we offer Thee!
May thine a father’s care toward us be!
Our father lov’d us — Oh! that we may find
In Thine a father’s love remains behind;
A love whose smile shall brighten our career
On earth, and waft our spirits to the sphere
Where we through immortality may claim
In his, and in our God’s, a Father’s Name.