The Father And The Sticks

Nothing will cause a father to 

Feel grief more than disunity,

Among his children who undo 

The tie that binds their family. 

And so one father tried to show 

A drawback of fraternal strife; 

For harmony he would bestow, 

In order to improve their life. 

He bid them gather sticks to bind 

Them fast together, in the hope 

That doing so his sons would find 

The bunch unbroken for a rope. 

Yet when the bundle was untied 

Each broke his own stick easily; 

So, that he showed, that unified, 

A bunch could never broken be. 

The bond he told his sons to tie 

Was Love for one another, so, 

That had to be their reason why

They’d overcome the fatal foe. 

“Together you will be as strong 

As is the bundle that I bound; 

You have to strive to get along, 

For strength in unity is found.

“Division sets men, each apart, 

From one another, for no end; 

So, to be healthy, hale of heart, 

On brotherhood we all depend.

“Remember: be of one accord,” 

The father to his children said, 

“Discord only unties that cord!” 

A bundle depends on a thread.