A Good Daughter

A Good Daughter

There are other ministries of love more conspicuous than hers,

But none in which a gentler, lovelier spirit dwells,

And none’twich the heart more joyfully responds.

As son’s occupations carry him more abroad,

While a good daughter is the steady light of her father’s house.

Her idea is indissolubly connected with that of his happy fireside.

She is his morning sunlight and his evening star

The grace and vivacity and the tenderness of her sex

Have their place in the mighty sway which she holds over his spirit.

The lessons of recorded wisdom which he reads with her eyes

Come to his mind with a new charm

As they blend with the beloved melody of her voice.

He scarcely knows weariness which her song does not make him forget,

Or gloom which is proof of the young brightness of her smiles.

She is the pride and ornament of his hospitality

And the gentle nurse of his sickness,

The constant agent in those nameless, numberless acts of kindness

Which one chiefly cares to have rendered

Because they are unpretending, but all expressive of her love.

And then what a cheerful share is she

And what an able lightener of her mother’s cares.

What an ever present delight and triumph to a mother’s affection

Oh, how little do those daughters know

Of the power which God has committed to them!

And the happiness that a parent’s eye that rests on them

Bring raptures to a parent’s heart.

Author Unknown

I found this poem in a book I recently read titled The Family Daughter  by Sarah Bryant. When I read the poem I thought “If that is a good daughter then I have a long ways to go!” but it does give me something to strive for.