Lundy's Lane, and Other Poems

by Duncan Campbell Scott

You told him to fight and he fought, and he wasn't afraid;

You wanted to prove him in battle, You sent him to Lundy's Lane,

'Tis well!" But she only would answer over and over again,

"Give me back my Abner—give me back my son!"

It was so all through the winter until the spring had begun,

And the crocus was up in the dooryard, and the drift by the fence was thinned,

And the sap drip-dropped from the branches wounded by the wind,

And the whole earth smelled like a flower,—then she came to me one night—

"Rufus!" she said, with a sob in her throat,—"Rufus, you're right."

I hadn't cried till then, not a tear—but then I was torn in two—