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                John Chipman Farrar (1896-)

                              Parenthood

    The birches that dance on the top of the hill
    Are so slender and young that they cannot keep still,
    They bend and they nod at each whiff of a breeze,
    For you see they are still just the children of trees.

    But the birches below in the valley are older,
    They are calmer and straighter and taller and colder.
    Perhaps when we've grown up as solemn and grave,
    We, too, will have children who do not behave!

 


The above poem appeared in Farrar's book Songs For Parents published in 1921 by Yale University Press.

It can be found for example in:

  • Harrington, Mildred P., and Josephine H. Thomas, eds. Our Holidays in Poetry. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1938.