T’will be a great day for the Future,
The dim and broken Future,
When the Children come!
They will bring back some clean, unlooted treasure;
New hope in life, of love a higher measure;
Unselfish aim, and purer, keener, pleasure
When they come home.
I see them dazed, the little bare feet stumbling;
I see them hasten, stunned, confused, and stumbling—
Yet unafraid.
For one great People comes to bring them gladness;
To take away the pitiful child-sadness;
To heal the infant pain and baby madness—
Another People made.
On one side wait the agonizing mothers,
The tearless, outraged, consecrated mothers,
To see them come;
The other side is lined with silent fathers,
Dead, mutilated, tortured, murdered fathers,
Sacred, elect, regenerated fathers,
Who died for Home.
And with them march the gay and ready Strangers,
The sunny, stern Americans, the Strangers,
Who bid them come.
Yea, though my eyes be blind with bitter crying,
Yet do I count worth while the fearful dying;
When dead men on a hundred red fields lying
Send the children—Home!
[A] Editorial Leader of New York Times, July 21st, 1917.
FOR OUR MEN
LET us keep home safe for them—
Fires, laughter and song,
The curtains close, the beds all smooth and white,
The leisure long.
Let us make good things for them—
Sweet meats and bright conserves,
Nourishing breads and all the dear delights
Hunger deserves.
Let us lift high God for them,
And like tall candles hold
The straight white lights that in the trench they knew—
Were more than gold.
Let us grow up for them,
And hold us to impassioned lofty thought—
So they shall never come to be ashamed
Of that for which they fought.