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Edgar Guest - When Father Shook The Stove
Work rating: Medium

`Twas not so many years ago, 
Say, twenty-two or three, 
When zero weather or below 
Held many a thrill for me. 
Then in my icy room I slept 
A youngster`s sweet repose, 
And always on my form I kept 
My flannel underclothes. 
Then I was roused by sudden shock 
Though still to sleep I strove, 
I knew that it was seven o`clock 
When father shook the stove. 

I never heard him quit his bed 
Or his alarm clock ring; 
I never heard his gentle tread, 
Or his attempts to sing; 
The sun that found my window pane 
On me was wholly lost, 
Though many a sunbeam tried in vain 
To penetrate the frost. 
To human voice I never stirred, 
But deeper down I dove 
Beneath the covers, when I heard 
My father shake the stove. 

To-day it all comes back to me 
And I can hear it still; 
He seemed to take a special glee 
In shaking with a will. 
He flung the noisy dampers back, 
Then rattled steel on steel, 
Until the force of his attack 
The building seemed to feel. 
Though I`d a youngster`s heavy eyes 
All sleep from them he drove; 
It seemed to me the dead must rise 
When father shook the stove. 


Now radiators thump and pound 
And every room is warm, 
And modern men new ways have found 
To shield us from the storm. 
The window panes are seldom glossed 
The way they used to be; 
The pictures left by old Jack Frost 
Our children never see. 
And now that he has gone to rest 
In God`s great slumber grove, 
I often think those days were best 
When father shook the stove.
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