Every home should have a daughter,

For there's nothing like a girl

To keep the world around her

In one continuous whirl.

From the moment she arrives on earth,

And on through womanhood,

A daughter is a "female"

Who is seldom understood.

One minute she is laughing,

The next she starts to cry,

Man just can't understand her

And there's just no use to try.

She is soft and sweet and cuddly,

But she's also wise and smart;

She's a wondrous combination

Of a mind and brain and heart.

And even in her baby days,

She's just a born coquette;

And anything she really wants,

She manages to get.

For even at a tender age,

She uses all her wiles;

And she can melt the hardest heart

With the sunshine of her smiles.

She starts out as a rosebud

With her beauty unrevealed;

Then through a happy childhood,

Her petals are unsealed.

She's soon a sweet girl graduate,

And then a blushing bride;

And then a lovely woman

As the rosebud opens wide.

And some day in the future,

If it be God's gracious will,

She, too, will be a Mother

And know that reverent thrill,

That comes to every Mother

Whose heart is filled with love

When she beholds her "angel"

That God sent her from above.

And there would be no life at all

In this world or the other

Without a "darling daughter"

Who, in turn, becomes a "Mother!"

~ Helen Steiner Rice ~