"WE GIVE OUR SONS."
Such our proud cry—a vain and empty boast;
Love did not ask so great a sacrifice;
The first réveillé found you at your post;
You knew the cost; clear-eyed you paid the price;
Some far clear call we were too dull to hear
Had caught your ear.
Not ours to urge you, or to know the voice;
No stern decree you followed or obeyed;
Nothing compelled your swift unerring choice,
Except the stuff of which your dreams were made;
To that high instinct passionately true,
Your way you knew.
We did not give you—all unasked you went,
Sons of a greater motherhood than ours;
To our proud hearts your young brief lives were lent,
Then swept beyond us by resistless powers.
Only we hear, when we have lost our all,
That far clear call.