Summer Poem: A Boy and His Dad by Edgar Guest

Fishing on the RiverIt’s time for our annual summer poem. This year, I chose a warm, evocative poem by Edgar A. Guest, the author of many home- and family-focused poems. If you have boys, I think you’ll especially enjoy this, particularly if you’ve read and enjoyed John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart and Fathered by God.

In a different vein, I also included a brief poem by William Carlos Williams. Be sure to notice how he creates a whimsical, yet thoughtful mood using just a few carefully chosen words. Enjoy!

A Boy and His Dad
by Edgar Guest

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
In an open boat, and the speech is fair.
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who’s with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for one minute could take his place.

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,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim;
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.

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,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life’s truths from my father’s lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips.

Summer Song
by William Carlos Williams

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,-
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer’s smile,-
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

Related Posts:

How to Fit Art and Music into Your Homeschool


Mother's Lessons, Amalfi, by Robert Walter Weir

Mother's Lessons, Amalfi, by Robert Walter Weir

During our homeschooling years, one of my favorite parts of the year was early summer when we could take a break and I could plan curriculum for the next school year. I’d lovingly gather everything we needed for a fascinating year, then start trying to create a schedule in which we could use it all.

Math and language arts always made it to the schedule first, followed by history and science. This left foreign language, art, music, practical skills, and more. Plus life– something we would theoretically have time for each day. I’d pencil in each of the “secondary” subjects, but year after year my tidy little schedule would shift, and art and music would be the first thing to go when things got hectic.

I discovered something, though. Art and music don’t always have to be taught during school hours or even during the school year. They are both inherently appealing, and they fit easily into family life. You can teach the history, theory, and application of both art and music if you just make them part of your lifestyle of learning.

Here are some of the ways we studied art and music (and a variety of other subjects that gained interest when released from the confines of the classroom):

The Music Lesson by Johannes Vermeer

The Music Lesson by Johannes Vermeer

There were probably other things we did, and some of these we did better or more frequently than others, but I think you get the idea. Instead of despairing when you run out of classroom time for art and music, just have things available so that you can allow both subjects to flow into the leftover spaces in your day.

A few tips:

Join us at the HEAV conference this year. I really like the “You Can Do It!” theme, because it’s true. You can do it!

You can do it! Home Educators Association of Virginia Conference

You can do it! Home Educators Association of Virginia Conference

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