Sometimes at the table, when <br />He gets misbehavin', then <br />Mother calls across to me: <br />'Look at him, now! Don't you see <br />What he's doin', sprawlin.' there! <br />Make him sit up in his chair. <br />Don't you see the messy way <br />That he's eating?' An' I say: <br />'No. He seems all right just now. <br />What's he doing anyhow?' <br /> <br />Mother placed him there by me, <br />An' she thinks I ought to see <br />Every time he breaks the laws <br />An' correct him, just because <br />There will come a time some day <br />When he mustn't act that way. <br />But I can't be all along <br />Scoldin' him for doin' wrong. <br />So if something goes astray, <br />I jus' look the other way. <br /> <br />Mother tells me now an' then <br />I'm the easiest o' men, <br />An' in dealin' with the lad <br />I will never see the bad <br />That he does, an' I suppose <br />Mother's right for Mother knows; <br />But I'd hate to feel that I'm <br />Here to scold him all the time. <br />Little faults might spoil the day, <br />So I look the other way. <br /> <br />Look the other way an' try <br />Not to let him catch my eye, <br />Knowin' all the time that he <br />Doesn't mean so bad to be; <br />Knowin', too, that now an' then <br />I am not the best o' men; <br />Hopin', too, the times I fall <br />That the Father of us all, <br />Lovin', watchin' over me, <br />Will pretend He doesn't see.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pretending-not-to-see/
