He hears his father pray when he's a boy: "Jesus we know, the Savior, and we ask, In Thy great plenitude of mercy, grace, Forgiveness for our waywardness; we invoke Thy blessing, and may righteousness and peace Prevail in all the earth. Meekly we rest Upon the precious promise of Thy word. Gather us home with Thine own people, Lord, And all the glory shall be Thine." So much To show the father's prayer which he heard. The father is a saint, a quietist, Save that he has his hatreds, strong enough: Turns face of stone and silence to the men Whose ways of life are laid in sin, he thinks And calls them dirty dogs and scalawags, Because they vote a ticket he dislikes, Or love a game of cards, a glass of beer, Or go to see the County Fair, where once A drunken bus-man drives upon a boy And kills him. Then the saint is all aflame, And tries to have the fair put out for good. And so the son, who will become at last The Christian Statesman, hears his father pray, And prays himself, and takes the lesson in Of godliness, the Bible as the source Of truth infallible, divine. This boy Is blessed with health, a body without flaw, His forehead is a little low, perhaps, And has a transverse dent which keeps the brain Shaped to the skull; a perfect brain is sphered, As perfect things are circles; but a brain Something below perfection, which is fed By a great body and an obdurate will, And sense of moral purpose will go far, Farther than better brains in craft of states, For some years anyway, if a voice be given Which reaches to the largest crowded room, To speak the passionate moralities Which come into that brain creased straight across The forehead with a dent. He goes to school, And from the first believes he has a mission To make the world a better place, avows His mission in the world, bends all his strength To make his armor ready: health of body, A blameless life, hard studies, practices With word and voice. It is a country college Where he matriculates--the father wished it; A college where the boys are mostly poor, And waste no time, have not the cash to buy Delight, if they desired.