| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| “The Father” |
| | | George Francis Savage-Armstrong (b. 1845) |
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| IF it were only a dream, | |
| Were it not good to cherish, | |
| Seeing to lose its beam | |
| Is in despair to perish— | |
| Maker and Father and Friend, | 5 |
| Yearning in pity to guide me, | |
| Leading me on to the end, | |
| Ever in love beside me, | |
| Never in storm or gloom | |
| Deaf to a cry of sorrow, | 10 |
| Kindling beyond the tomb | |
| Light of an endless morrow? | |
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| Yea, if ’t were only a dream, | |
| Better it were to clasp it, | |
| Brood on it until it seem | 15 |
| Real as the lives that grasp it. | |
| Helpless, feeble, and lost, | |
| Groping in Wisdom’s traces, | |
| Whirl’d like a leaf, and tost | |
| Out in the awful spaces,— | 20 |
| Oh, how the heart betray’d | |
| Bounds, into life upleaping, | |
| Trusting that He who made | |
| Watch over all is keeping! | |
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