Albert Schirding by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one / Because his children were all failures.

But I know of a fate more trying than that:

It is to be a failure while your children are successes.

For I raised a brood of eagles / Who flew away at last, leaving me / A crow on the abandoned bough.

Then, with the ambition to prefix Honorable to my name, / And thus to win my children's admiration, / I ran for County Superintendent of Schools, / Spending my accumulations to win -- and lost.

That fall my daughter received first prize in Paris / For her picture, entitled, The Old Mill --

(It was of the water mill before Henry Wilkin put in steam.)

The feeling that I was not worthy of her finished me.