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Tangled Threads

With troubled look on boyish face,
And all with sobs and sighs,
One hand well hid in chestnut curls,
With wistful, deep brown eyes,

Our darling comes to me to-day
and holds to what he brings.
"Papa, can you untangle this?"
A bunch of tangled strings.

My cherished task I lay aside
To grant him his request:
A rich reward I feel is mine,
A child with a grateful breast.

Howard Agassiz Murrill

 



Howard Agassiz Murrill was born in 1878. He was a circuit rider, travelling on horseback to churches all over several counties in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. After he became a pastor of a church in Parkesburg, West Virginia, he compiled his poems and had them published in a little book called Andiron Songs. This selection from the book was inspired by his son, born in 1909.

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