"Nay, good mother, do not weep!
Since the summons comes from Rome,
Can we really wish to keep
Sons at home?"
"And why not?" she made reply;
"We have no invading foe;
I would send my son to die,
Were it so."
But he's gone across the sea!
Gone with thousands such as he!
He is bound for Tripoli,
Tripoli!
"What is Africa to me,
If it swallow up my child?
What care I for Tripoli,
Spot defiled!
Did not Abyssinian sand
Drink sufficiently our gore?
Must we stain that fatal strand,
As before?"
Yet he's gone across the sea,
Who more valorous than he?
He is bound for Tripoli,
Tripoli!
"Have we no great uses here
For the millions we outpour?
Are our consciences quite clear
In this war?
Are there no more roads to build,
Schools to found, and farms to work.
That we let our boys be killed
By the Turk?"
Yet we send them o'er the sea!
Youthful sons of Italy,
They are bound for Tripoli,
Tripoli!
"We are hungry, yet behold,
How the price of food goes higher!
And the nights will soon be cold
Without fire!
Who will earn for me my bread?
Who my little home will save,
When he lies there cold and dead
In his grave?"
But he's gone across the sea!
Who so good and kind to me?
He is bound for Tripoli,
Tripoli!
To the churchyard, near the bay,
Went the mother in her grief,
For her soul was moved to pray
For relief;
And deep sobs convulsed her breast,
As she knelt upon the sod,
Where her husband lay at rest,
Safe in God.
For the boy was o'er the sea,
Whom she rocked upon her knee;
He had gone to Tripoli,
Tripoli!