A Father's Prayer

I sometimes wonder when I read the sorrow in his face

If I shall wear that look of care when time has marched apace?

My little boy is five years old and his is twenty-one;

My little boy is home with me; his boy to war has gone.

And I can laugh and dance with life, and I can gayly jest,

But heavy is the heart to-day that beats within his breast.

Time was, his boy was five years old; time was he smiled as I;

I wonder what awaits for me when youth has journeyed by?

Last night I sat at home and watched my little boy at play,

And all the time I thought of him whose boy has gone away.

And in the joy that I possessed I prayed in silence then

That God would quickly bring him back his little boy again.