Publication information
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Source: The Complete Poetical Works of John Hay
Source type: book
Document type: poem
Document title: “To Theodore Roosevelt”
Author(s): Hay, John
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Place of publication: Boston, Massachusetts
Year of publication: 1916
Pagination: 232

 
Citation
Hay, John. “To Theodore Roosevelt.” The Complete Poetical Works of John Hay. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916: p. 232.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Theodore Roosevelt (poetry).
 
Named persons
none.
 
Notes
From title page: The Complete Poetical Works of John Hay, Including Many Poems Now First Collected.

From title page: With an Introduction by Clarence L. Hay.
 
Document

 

To Theodore Roosevelt

SON of a sire whose heart beat ever true
     To God, to country, and the fireside love
     To which returning, like a homing dove,
From each high duty done, he gladly flew,
Complete, yet touched by genius through and through,
     The lofty qualities that made him great,
     Loved in his home and priceless to the state,
By Heaven’s grace are garnered up in you.
Be yours, we pray, the dauntless heart of youth,
     The eye to see the humor of the game,
     The scorn of lies, the large Batavian mirth;
And, past the happy, fruitful years of fame,
     Of sport and work and battle for the truth,
     A home not all unlike your home on earth.

Christmas Eve, 1902.

 

 


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