Short poem about bread and stones for your child?

February 7, 2012 6:54 PM

Poetry filter: Google can't help me as the poem plays on the Luke 11:11 "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?". Driving me mad not being able to find it, a a short 5-6 line poem, from an old UK anthology, Voices, which says broadly that in the future, we will all be equal and share, but still I will give stones to other children and keep bread for my own child. Not a translation and a modern non-rhyming poem.
posted by viggorlijah to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Was Voices the complete title, and do you have any other information about it (editor, year, etc.)? If the book could be found at Google Books, you might get a snippet view that would help.
posted by languagehat at 8:21 AM on February 8, 2012

Mod note: Final update from the OP:

I found the poem by chance in another anthology.

Nationality
by Dame Mary Gilmore

I have grown past hate and bitterness,
I see the world as one;
But though I can no longer hate,
My son is still my son.

All men at God’s round table sit,
and all men must be fed;
But this loaf in my hand,
This loaf is my son’s bread.

posted by taz (staff) at 1:08 AM on February 24, 2014