LITTLE WAR MOTHERS.
When you look at his picture and your eyes
Are dimmed and mighty wet,
And it seems as though your trembling hands
Could reach and touch him yet:
When you faintly call and he answers not
Your supplicating prayer,
Remember his last thought was You:
I know—for I was there.
When the day is done and the hearth-fire glows,
And you slowly knit and knit;
And your furtive eyes from the embers rise
To where he used to sit:
And you feel he never can slip up
And kiss you unaware,
Remember his last word was You:
I know—for I was there.
When your dear brave heart is breaking—
And life is ’reft of joy;
And only the spark of memory—
The face of a boy—your boy:
May the good God hover over you,
And touch your silvered hair,
And tell you what I’ve tried to tell:
He knows — for He was there.
INTERRUPTED CHOW.
I’ve had some mighty narrow calls—
Some close shaves not a few,
But one of the fairly closest
I’ll now narrate to you.
’Twas midnight—hush! the plot grows thick—
Crowd close, and hold your breath—
’Twas midnight—and the slum-cart came
Upon its round of death.
(It isn’t really that the slum
Was quite as bad as that,
But the playful Boche so often dropped
A shell where it was at.)
’Twas midnight—and our appetites
Were whetted large and keen,
As trench feed, once a day, must leave
An interval between.
And so we sought the buzzy-cart,
“Mess-kits alert” and found
It standing in a quiet spot
Where never came a sound—