THE PINE-TREE FLAG
Our woodsbred northern women (There were no weaklings there:
Maine, Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, their glory share;
They were New England women, as brave as they were fair)—
Our woodsbred northern women (They sent their sires and sons,
The husbands of their bosoms, their well-beloved ones,
To dare the foeman’s anger and to face the foeman’s guns)—
Our woodsbred northern women (whose men went forth to war)
Wove ’mid the woods a banner their bairns and brothers bore,
Wove ’mid the woods a banner to carry on before.
Our woodsbred northern women wove not in red or gold;
There were no stripes of crimson, no constellations bold;
It was a simpler pattern their aspirations told.
Our woodsbred northern women a simpler flag disclose;
Upon the snowy linen like their New England snows,
By women’s hands embroidered, a single pine-tree rose.
Our woodsbred northern women knew naught of warlike things,
The bloody skill of soldiers, the heavy pomp of kings;
They knew no better music than that the pine-tree sings.
Our woodsbred northern women (There were no weaklings there)
Wove not a blood-red banner for sire and son to bear—
But northern snow, and pine-tree, and purity, and pray’r.
Our woodsbred northern women (whose men went forth to war)
Sent them not forth in passion to fight on sea and shore
But with a holy purpose gave up the sons they bore.
Our woodsbred northern women, no more against the skies
Your strange, unwarlike banner in cause or conflict flies;
But we see your souls courageous in your children’s children’s eyes.